kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Markus Hitter <mah@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Am 15.10.2015 um 17:29 schrieb Adam Wolf:
> Markus,
> 
> I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I do not think saying "KiCad works on
> computers" is going to help our users or our developers.  I think this is
> actually a question of opportunity cost and focus, similar to your other
> posts from the last few days.

Adam,

thanks for explaining what the motivations are. I have to admit that I
almost get into a rage when I read all this cheering about how foolish a
user working on simple hardware would be. A large screen is entirely
fine (I have one, too) for those who enjoy them, but declaring somebody
as dumb who has choosen to not use one is certainly not respectful.
Especially in the hobbyist area most people do very simple things, so
there is simply no need for rendering 10'000 tracks at 60 fps. These
users are perfectly fine with much less, so I try to put in a vote for them.


> Opportunity cost and focus, mostly.
[...]
> If we have to design KiCad so it works great on 800x600 screens, for
> example, is that extra *manual* testing on every single GUI change for
> developers?  (today, yes.)

I'd be entirely fine with stating exactly this. "Graphics is tested with
1024x768 and larger, your mileage may vary with smaller screens". Sounds
much much better than "only a fool would try on 800x600".

[...]
> Does it help or hurt if we say "KiCad can use the GPU to make PCB editing
> of larger boards more responsive.  Nicer GPUs, like the Frobnitz Zorkmid
> EXTREME, work better than software GPUs like the Foobar H3."

Also a good, helpful description. It makes clear that nobody tries to
stop users from using the software. Actually it sounds very positive,
because it describes that KiCad is capable of taking advantage of
accelerated hardware.

[...]
> If I end up spending
> 100% of my time supporting users who expect KiCad will work amazingly on
> their 200 mhz Cyrix, they're going to have a bad time, and I'm going to
> have a bad time.

While I'm new to KiCad, I'm not new to Open Source development in
general. Yes, there are always users which try to get developers into
additional work. Asking is cheap, after all. Experience is, this never
stops, no matter where one draws the line. If you claim to fully support
800x600 they'll ask for support on their phone. If you support phones
they'll ask for these 384x240 embedded displays. And so on, to no end.
Still it's not helfpul to rigorously show them the door.

A simple and, to my experience, well working solution is to ask these
people for their code. Along the lines of "We currently have no
developer being interested in writing such code, but if you contribute
it, we'll likely accept it". 9 of 10 people will walk away after such a
statement, without being miffed. If the tenth user actually comes up
with code, all the better!


Markus

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Dipl. Ing. (FH) Markus Hitter
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