kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>]

Hi Al,


The summer of code is only open to students right?

This limits who can win the prize, but does not limit who can do the 
work. Its just that you have to be a student to get any money for it?

Maybe Jean-Pierre has some students. I forwarded this to my son also.

In the end, a student with Kicad, Gnucap, and C++ experience is best. I 
wonder how many of these there are. Seems like a limited set of 
qualified personnel. 


Required Qualifications:

1) Student
2) C++ experience
3) Kicad experience
4) Gnucap experience


Even if such a person can be found, it is reasonable to assume they will 
come asking for guidance.


My suggestion is to use D-BUS. The file formats in Kicad are likely to 
evolve and that will break code that relies on a stable format. A 
series of well designed D-BUS functions are likely to be more stable and 
immune from file format changes. 


So, would it then make sense for you to list your needs at runtime, 
since Gnucap would be considered a client of a Kicad service? By 
runtime, I mean in a situation where both Gnucap and Kicad are loaded 
and running concurrently. 


Maybe you can identify function declarations in psuedo code or (cidl) 
that you would need to make your end work at runtime. These can then be 
evolved into D-BUS interface documentation sets, and then we have 
provided some guidance to any one stepping forward, student or 
otherwise. Obviously the final implementation can exceed the requirements.


That is my suggested path forward. It tries to protect investment of 
effort (by offering better but not perfect immunity from file format 
changes), and it tries to provide a path of maximum user experience at 
runtime.


Dick



> Hi .. I am the main author of Gnucap. I would like to get 
> Gnucap and Kicad to interoperate.
>
> Gnucap is participating in the Google Summer of code under the 
> GNU project.
>
> There is a list of suggested projects at:
> http://wiki.gnucap.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=gnucap:projects
>
> One of the projects listed is format translation. There is a 
> need for a driver, and several plugins for specific formats.
>
> Another possibility is a Dbus interface plugin, in hopes of real 
> interaction between the simulator and schematic, like you get 
> with Multisim (a commercial simulator).
>
> My reason for posting here is that one of the needed formats is 
> to interoperate with kicad, both schematic and layout. There's 
> a possibility of such a project under the Google Summer of 
> Code, and I want to invite someone here to apply. The deadline 
> is April 3.
>
> Even if nothing comes out of this SoC opportunity, I still want 
> for Gnucap and Kicad to work together, and am open to ideas.
>
> al.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
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