Homebrew PCBs

Stefan Trethan schrieb:
>
> Such as just about any other package. At home i use Target 3001 and
>



I think Eagle comes out a tad bit too bad in this discussion. I tired 
Target back when I evaluated packages and did not managed to do even a 
simple design and found myself totally lost. Might be that I'm just too 
stupid.

It was me who made the bad experience with CadSoft locking my IP that 
was mentioned several times in this thread. However, I found a pair of 
ULPs (on CadSofts Download area actually!) that let me export all the IP 
into an ASCII file and back in from there so I actually only lost the 
time for the utterly embarassing e-mail comunication with CadSoft 
support in this case.

I have to say though that thereafter (well, forced to continue to use 
Eagle for monetary reasons so far) I called CadSoft support many times 
and always got very friendly help where help could be given.

IMHO CadSoft is having the following "problems" with Eagle these days:

a) they definately should introduce more advanced features like bus 
routing and signal analysis. Instead I have the impression they sit a 
bit on what they have achived so far, introducing features that are not 
targeted towards making PCBs but more for drawing electrical 
installation plans and stuff like this.

b) Their user interface is still not fully "windows" complying. That 
said there are anoying things of how you have to use the software where 
one would expect more standard behaviour these days. With "windows 
complying" I mean just what got standard behaviour in GUIs these days 
like how you cut&paste, move around objects or expect actions to take 
place based on selected objects etc. etc.

c) Their strengt of having an extremly powerfull user language (ULP) 
seems also to be their biggest weakeness in that I get the impression 
they are happy if a problem gets solved with an ULP instead of directly 
implementing this feature. In the longer run lots of routine tasks are 
done with ULPs and this leads to an overall clumsy working style.

Apart from the above, I consider Eagle to be a good mid class EDA 
package. What makes me sleep well is the fact that using their ULP 
language and the fact that you really can access the last bit of 
information within schemas, boards and libraries will allow me to export 
that information into whatever ASCII format a new EDA software will 
support. So I'm sure a very high degree of the work I do in Eagle will 
be portable to whatever package I end up with. If time permits I 
probably will eyeball gEDA, but I'm actually also ready to spend the 
money for a more professional package supporting high speed simulation, 
digital bus routing and things like that. Should gEDA arrive at this 
level by this time - well, one has the right to dream - right? :-)

Just my 2\ufffd

Markus