Hello fellow Designers

I have been following the responses on the request of Steve Rose to
get information on what are "good" design systems and so on,
and I was amused to see that the discussion evolved EXACTLY as
expected : everybody says in more or less words that he/she works with
the best system (or believe they will work with it after the current
benchmarks).

The other discussion that was going on involved the differences between
a "PCB designer" and a "CAD operator", and most people seemed to agree
that although a good designer should be valued higher than a CAD operator,
this is often not recognized as such by "the management", because a CAD
operator trained for the right system will be productive the first
hour he is working for his new employer.

Well now I believe that both discussions are closely related, becuase of this
fact : the industry is designing PCBS with the help of computers back since the
'60s, but no-one in the industry, not the design community, nor the IPC has ever
made it clear to the CAD outfits how important it would be to have common or
standard user interfaces on all of these software packages. That is essentially
why the best PCB designer isn't worth more than anyone else (and certainly less
than a trained "CAD-operator") if you replace his CAD system with another one :
He will probably not even be able to read in a netlist, let alone start the the autorouter.

So, essentially, it's all your own fault ...

I always draw the following parallel : you can put 90% of the (western) world polulation
on a plane to any city anywhere in the world, and ask him to rent a car, and I'm
sure that 99% of them will be driving within a quarter of an hour after they've picked
up the keys.  Maybe they won't know how to operate the radio, but they surely will
drive, and the EXCELLENT drivers (read : PCB designers) will drive (design) BETTER
(boards) than the others ...  How come ? Because cars have a standard user interface
for 90% of their functionality, and CAD systems have not. And why's that ? Beause
designers don't spec that ... and when they would have over the years,  they
would have driven the "CAD-operators" well into extinction ...

One last note for Bob Vanech (the SciCards enthusiast) : I benchmarked SciCards 2 years
ago, and it MIGHT be a very good system, but I can ensure everybody that for any NORMAL
person, the user interface was nothing less than a nightmare.  In terms of my automobile
parallel : it has the user interface of a PLANE.  Maybe, if you know how to FLY,
you're certainly better off than with a CAR.

Any reactions welcome -- Peter Willaert

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