[sdiy] oh KiCad

[Colin Hinz]

I'm getting back into KiCad after a hiatus of a couple of years. Back
when, I was using a version released in 2007; now, I've installed the
2013-07-07 version, apparently the most recent "stable" one. I'm
unclear what's changed in the intervening six years, as the KiCad
people don't appear to believe in publishing a revision history.

One apparent change -- which from the user perspective is huge --
which isn't documented ANYWHERE is the change to the component
libraries. Anyone here know much about that? I can't even find out
when the change was implemented, let alone any of the details.

I get that with most open-source projects, the documentation is
often a bit of an afterthought. But KiCad was on a pretty solid footing
a few years back, and now it seems that all the docwriters have gone
away. Sad, this.

(Oh, and don't get me started on the "we aren't doing stable releases
anymore; we're just going to update the code repository as we feel
like it" aspect -- have the devs ever used professional EDA software?
Having a tool that mutates every time you use it seems to be a bug,
not a feature. But maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy who wants to
focus on the task, and not the tool....)

- Colin