kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[xarx@xxxxxx]

> I spent a couple of days trying to get eSim to even run their examples
> on Windows with no success.

I don't want to advocate them, I've already written my opinion on eSim. But
their latest Windows version is working for me without problems (but it's
buggy). There are almost no component libraries though.

> To be honest, I have not looked at their source

The core of eSim functionality is written in Python, so it's cross-platform.
But as this is only a few classes and files, it would be easy to re-write all
of it to wxWindows. The only part that is compiled is the project manager app
which is not important from the perspective of KiCad.

> The problem with the lack of kicad (or
> eda in general) developers stems from the fact that you have to be more
> than a competent C++ programmer to hack on kicad. You also have to
> understand the problem domain which is designing schematics and laying
> out printed circuit boards. The number of developers that have this
> kind of experience is very very small.

This is exactly the reason why these "competent" developers should be shared
and cooperated among projects.
Moreover, there are many complex tasks in KiCad that don't need an EDA
expertise. They need rather the toolkit or wxWindows expertise. For instance
creation of a plugin framework discussed currently in another thread. Or
netlist exports which are essentially just conversions between two known
formats. Or many tasks from the road-map, like turning separate executable
modules of KiCad (PcbNew, EESChema etc.) into libraries. And many more.

> We actually do have an idea where we are headed and a road map

That's good, but they are still too vague for a newbie to learn what exactly
needs to be done.
On the other hand, it's funny that in the repository are 3 (!) actively
developed refactorings of the 3D Viewer. I understant that 3D modelling is
interesting and that you cannot prohibit to the developers to play with it,
but this is waste of effort.

         Martin.

----- Původní zpráva -----
Odesílatel: Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>
Příjemce: kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Datum: Wed, 4 Nov 2015 11:00:17 -0500
Předmět: Re: [Kicad-developers] About collaboration, simulation,
documentation, organisation, usability and documentation


> My responses below are pretty well known to most of the devs that have
> been here a while.  For the folks new to the mailing list, please read
> on.  I should probably put a lot of this in some type of formal
> developer documentation ("A Word from the Project Leader"???) so that I
> do not have to keep repeating myself.
> 
> On 11/4/2015 8:32 AM, xarx@xxxxxx wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > a good topic and good ideas, in my opinion. Though it should be the core
> > developers who should say that.
> > 
> > A few weeks ago I was performing my own small research in what EDA tools
are
> > available. I was looking for a schema_drawing-simulator-pcb_creator
> all-in-one
> > app. And found none (free). I was playing a lot especially with QUCS and
eSim
> > (previously Oscad). Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seemed to me that the
> > development in QUCS almost ceased, leaving the application in unfinished
> state
> > with simulation stability problems. And eSim (which is basically a KiCad
> > wrapper) adds very little functionality to KiCad, but creates a completely
> new
> > project manager with very restricted functionality and a lot of bugs.
> 
> I spent a couple of days trying to get eSim to even run their examples
> on Windows with no success.  This did not instill me with much
> confidence.  The last time I looked, there was no OSX package.  Any
> changes to KiCad, must work on linux, osx, and windows.  I don't think
> that is an unreasonable expectation.
> 
> > 
> > And here I'm coming to what you were writing about: All three projects
(QUCS,
> > eSim and KiCad) seem to suffer with lack of people willing to contribute.
I
> > agree with you that mutual cooperation could help all three projects,
> > especially in the problem of lacking man-power. In particular, I was
> wondering
> > why eSim went its own way instead of by contributing to KiCad. My
suspicion
> is
> > that one of the reasons may be the initial rejection by the core team
> > developers to any unsolicited changes. I don't want to criticise that, I'm
> > just stating that this can be seen in the history of many patches in the
> > bug-tracker, where many suggestions were initially rejected, and only
after a
> > long discussion they found their way to the KiCad build.
> 
> To my knowledge, the eSim folks never presented anything other than here
> is our simulator let's collaborate.  The fact that they went and did
> their own thing would suggest that they have their own agenda.  I am all
> for collaboration but that is easier said than done since it appears
> that they have diverged significantly from kicad.  To be honest, I have
> not looked at their source and I wont have time in the near future due
> to the upcoming stable release so I do not have a good idea of how much
> effort it would require.
> 
> > 
> > The question is - who will be the people driving the changes? This is a
free
> > project, more than that - it uses GPL. And that's the reason why the
> > development goes the way it does. On of the KiCad developers said in a
> > discussion, that he is contributing to KiCad not make the word better, but
to
> > make it suit his needs. And I completely understand that... :-(
> 
> Such is the way of open source.  The problem with the lack of kicad (or
> eda in general) developers stems from the fact that you have to be more
> than a competent C++ programmer to hack on kicad.  You also have to
> understand the problem domain which is designing schematics and laying
> out printed circuit boards.  The number of developers that have this
> kind of experience is very very small.  Many of them, like myself,
> contribute because they actually use kicad to create printed circuit
> boards and are not terribly thrilled with the idea of someone else
> controlling their files which is what you get with propriety binary
> (mostly) formats.  Given our limited time to contribute, it's only
> fitting that we work on things that interest us.  Take that away and
> you'll have even fewer contributions.
> 
> > 
> > To be a little constructive: Your suggestions are good, but there has to
be
> > someone who takes care of them. And any such changes need an action plan/a
> > roadmap. Like this one:
> > http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cern-kicad/wiki/WorkPackages. (I have no idea
> how
> > is CERN KiCad related to this KiCad.) Because it's hard to contribute to a
> > project that has no idea of the way it wants to go.
> 
> We actually do have an idea where we are headed and a road map (albeit
> not updated as often as I should).  The biggest issue is attracting
> competent manpower that can work within the framework of the project.
> We've had many developers submit their pet features with no prior
> discussion with the development team.  When they are rejected or are
> asked to fix something they get offended and leave.  This to is very
> unique problem to open source.  If you were getting paid by your
> employer to do this and you refused to cooperate with the lead
> development team of your employer, you would rightfully be out of a job.
>  We have no such authority over volunteers.  We do have authority over
> what we allow to be committed to kicad.  That's the only leverage we
> have to get developers to cooperate.
> 
> > 
> >         Martin.
> > 
> > ----- Původní zpráva -----
> > Odesílatel: timofonic timofonic <timofonic@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Příjemce: "xarx@xxxxxx" <xarx@xxxxxx>
> > Datum: Wed, 4 Nov 2015 04:12:42 +0100
> > Předmět: About collaboration, simulation, documentation, organisation,
> > usability and documentation (Was: Re: [Kicad-developers] Bug #1511552 -
Fixes
> > to Incorrect export of Spice net-list from EESchema)
> > 
> > 
> >> Hello
> >>
> >> I'm just a lurker and still not started to contribute, but I have some
> >> ideas:
> >>
> >> - Indian Institute of Technology Bombay: I see technological and
> >> educational institutions as potential contributors at this stage of
> >> development. Indian Institute of Technology Bombay developed the Oscad
> >> package and showed a very good attitude towards collaboration, I think
they
> >> must go to FOSSDEM and talk very seriously about a long term
collaboration
> >> plan.
> 
> I think they need to improve the quality of their product and port it to
> osx first.  Then they need to draft a sane plan to merge the simulator
> into kicad.  Using another launcher on top of the kicad launcher doesn't
> make sense to me.  I would prefer that their simulation apps launch from
> the current kicad launcher although I'm not opposed to replacing the
> current kicad launcher with something better.  The key word is "better".
>  Different != better.
> 
> >> - Improving usability: I think UX should be taken under a very serious
> >> objective analysis by an independent group to make KiCad more popular,
> >> OpenUsability.org seems a good candidate. Old schoolers and some
developers
> >> might resist to change, but KiCad's UX is one of the things that still
make
> >> people uncomfortable to use it.
> 
> I am not interest in making kicad popular.  I am interest in making
> kicad better.  There is a significant difference between these two
> objectives.  For example: there are some folks who think clicking on an
> object to highlight it then right clicking to get a context menu of
> operation to perform on that object is better (more intuitive) than
> simply hovering over the object and hitting the appropriate hot key
> (simpler but with a learning curve).  It may be more intuitive but it's
> also a lot more steps to perform the exact same operation.  Is this
> better?  We can do both but I will not bow down to the usability gods
> who make it take longer to lay out a schematic and/or board (think
> gnome2 to gnome3 changes).  I actually use kicad at my real job to get
> work done.  For me, kicad is a productivity tool not a way to stroke my
> ego.  Anything that makes my life more difficult will be met with
> resistance.  I don't think this unreasonable.  I'm always willing to
> listen to suggestions on how your idea is going to make my life easier
> as a board designer as long as your willing to listen to my suggestions
> on usability.
> 
> >> - QUCS: It seems a great project with innovation in their core ideas. I
> >> think there should be some collaboration. It seems there are issues about
> >> SPICE models being copyrighted so they have to use script downloaders,
this
> >> would make a future KiCad library with all components available in
> >> SPICE/Verilog-A a very hard challenge until solved.
> >> - Organization: Are there clear roles in KiCad? Wayne is the project
> >> manager and there are translators, that's all I know. Are there main or
> >> specific roles in the team? What about a fast voting process to take
> >> decisions? Are there a formal meritocratic core team?
> 
> KiCad is a meritocracy in that you earn status by contributing and a
> willingness to work respectfully with the current development teams.
> This means contributing code, documentation, libraries, scripts, etc.
> It also means discussing those changes openly with the dev team and
> respecting the input of others and the lead devs.  As long as I am the
> project leader or there is a huge shift in human enlightenment, kicad
> will never be a pure democracy.  Pure democracies are mob rules and
> highly volatile.  Do some history research on the ancient Athenians and
> some of bad laws that came to pass due to pure democratic rule.
> Hysteria does not make for good governance.  Maybe in 1000 years (which
> I think is highly optimistic) when humanity becomes a bit more
> enlightened, pure democracies may be a viable way to govern.  Since I
> wont be alive then, it be a problem someone else will have to solve. :)
> 
> >> - Wiki: What about using a wiki for documentation? It provides an easier
to
> >> use environment,  it can be customized for i18n and even parsing KiCad
> >> files to show them  as SVG if someone writes a plugin for it. The
> >> documentation could be exported and shipped in each release, too.
> 
> I would suggest that you discuss this with our documentation developers
> on github.  I doubt they would be too keen on moving to a wiki based
> platform.  We just recently converted from odt files to asciidoc which
> is automatically regenerated to translated html, epub, and pdf formats
> when a pull request is made on github and linked to the kicad website.
> I really like what documentation and website dev teams have done and
> they have my full support and thanks for their efforts.  I'm not
> convinced a wiki is a good idea.  You would have to convince both me and
> more importantly the documentation team that that using a wiki makes sense.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Wayne
> 
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Relevant links:
> >> https://forum.kicad.info/t/simulating-kicad-schematics-in-spice/
> >> http://mithatkonar.com/wiki/doku.php/kicad/kicad_spice_quick_guide
> >> http://esim.fossee.in
> >> https://github.com/Oscad
> >> http://www.iitb.ac.in
> >>
> >> Kind regards.
> >>
> > 
> > ______________________________________________________________________
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> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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