On 05/08/2014 01:31 PM, John Beard wrote: > On 08/05/14 15:53, Dick Hollenbeck wrote: >> >>> That's exactly what I mean - older versions of KiCad should be able to >>> ignore, but retain, unknown data. >> >> This sentence has two concepts in it. One is fools gold, the other is >> poorly expressed. >> >> 1) An older kicad should load a data file that is has never seen before. > > Is this fools' gold? A PDF reader from 2005 would probably still load a > PDF made by newer software, even if there are new features it cannot > understand. It might say "You can't see the embedded 4D MegaContent > (TM), upgrade to a version that support PDF spec v5.6 for that", but > it will show you what it can. You'd be annoyed if it didn't, it would be > like Flash needing the latest version to watch your video, without the > excuse that is necessary to implement the latest and greatest DRM fad. > >> The motivation should be that you want the flexibility to solve a specific >> problem. > > The motivation is that I want the flexibility to add a field to a > .kicad_mod file, that still allows someone else to read the footprint, > if they don't *need* to know about that field. Currently, that will > cause THROW_PARSE_ERROR(), and they get nothing. > >> But it should not name future proofing as the motivation, because you don't >> want to >> upgrade. That's the part that gives me conceptual grief. > > It's not because *I* don't want to upgrade, *I'm* to the one who's > hypothetically extended some aspect of the footprint format for my own > ends. It's because J. Random McTrunkBuild (or even his cousin, > McDistroVersion) shouldn't need to recompile with a patch from me to > read a footprint of mine which has my field "(user_sku 45443)" or > "(jedec_ref "SOT45")" in it, when he doesn't need or care about that > field. > > The current state is there no way for people (not intimately familiar > with the .kicad_mod format) downloading a footprint now to know if it's > compatible with their KiCad without loading the footprint and then > guessing that the "Expected...." message means the footprint contains > unknown fields, as opposed to being malformed. > > Forced recompiles are only free if your time is worthless and any > problems caused by running bleeding-edge PCB software in production > environments have zero cost.
Submit a patch. Hope it gets accepted. _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
