kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/11/2014 12:20 PM, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
> In any case I think the CERN roadmap description for back annotation is over designed.
> There are simpler ways to handle this than the ECO described in that writeup.
> 
> 
> I would recommend that this item be scrapped and simplified.
> 
> Having travelled through a philosophical evolution during my career, I am now firmly in
> the camp that the simplest solution is usually the best solution.  And to keep the
> previous statement as simple as possible as well, something does not qualify as a solution
> unless it really is.
> 
> 
> Dick


I sure hope nobody freaks out over my last statement.   No two people agree on everything.
 Hell, I don't even agree with myself sometimes.

I do appreciate the work put into the document.

But for items which are over-designed, they serve more as "do not trespass sign" than
something that will actually expedite a working solution with short term utility.

If the do not trespass sign means only about 2 guys in 500 can actually work on the
solution, then it is self defeating.

I once designed one of the most complex software systems in history.  And implemented it
at age 28 with a team of the smartest guys you'd ever meet.  "It was cool because it was a
cool idea".

It was very complex.  It was its own "do not trespass sign", as new developers came into
the company.

You had to talk about it for 20 minutes just to tell people what it could do, because
nobody had ever seen anything like it.

The pendulum has swung.  Sorry for being a product of my experience.  Simple is now good,
very good.

On this particular roadmap item, what went from less than a day's work in my head
(actually about 4 hours) for back annotation to something probably requiring a database,
and more than a week's additional discussion before one line of code can be written, tells
me something was off on this particular one roadmap item.

It sends me packing, just like a do not trespass sign does.

The other roadmap stuff has great vision, although I'd say go softly on the tabbed UI
concepts for the main windows, because I want to see everything at once, with all the
monitor space I have.  Tabbing is not in my KiCad future.


Dick