Semantic problem with KiCad component treatment?

Current PCM also has some libraries to download:

EDIT: You can have your approach there so that users can make use with an out of the box experience.

Do you think of this as sufficient enough at the moment?

OK, well, I do appreciate the input of those who have been constructive in this thread. I will use this to run through experiments in the coming weeks and create a well-documented request to submit.

I have been using various discussion forums for some 40 years, going back to USENET, Compuserve and private BBSā€™s. Something that has not changed in all of that time is that there are always people who, for one reason or another, fail to engage, fail to understand, choose to not be constructive or simply love to argue just for sport. Or worse, engage in personal attacks. Like I said, Iā€™ve seen this for decades. These people donā€™t typically contribute anything aside from noise and insults. All I can say is ā€œLive long and prosperā€.

The other thing I know is that thereā€™s a silent majority who is rarely represented in these conversations. This is true for a range of reasons. This kind of thing can be a huge time sink. Others see the kind of food fight these things can become and just donā€™t have a stomach for it or donā€™t want to have to defend themselves against the mobs that can form. And yet, without someone pushing back the mobs win.

This silent majority doesnā€™t necessarily agree with everything being said, of course. However, I think I can say from prior experience, they tend to be the kind of people with whom you would actually want to have constructive conversations in person. Iā€™ve had that happen many times over the years and developed many wonderful friendships this way, locally, nationally and internationally.

I know that those who engage in critical thinking got the message dozens of posts ago. I wish there was a way to have conversations with them rather than the mob. I also know what I am proposing is important. That does not mean the KiCad team has the time to implement it (or that they will agree with me at all). If I had a non-trivial amount of money to throw at having this developed I would, in a microsecond. I canā€™t fund it. All I can do is explain why it is a good idea, provide support for it and see what happens. Thatā€™s what I am going to do.

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I donā€™t think so. Part of it is because it would not have the benefit of having these fields have a meaning other than to be extra fields in the libraries.

A simple example of this is how you can click on a part, type ā€œDā€ and have the datasheet pop-up on a browser. That happens because thereā€™s code in KiCad that implements this functionality.

The other issue is this problem of the value field being connected to the symbol name. I donā€™t understand why this is so other than to assume it was a convenience function that went too far.

I could write a Python program over the weekend that processed every single standard Python library to add three fields and a new independent value field. Put that up on Github and say ā€œHey, hereā€™s a better starting point for full schematic documentationā€. This would have to be supported with (I think) at least one python script to produce a decent BOM based on having those fields in every component.

As I continue experimenting with KiCad (which I absolutely love, BTW) it is becoming more and more obvious to me that this issue is important; it solves many problems. Like I have said multiple times, you simply cannot create a fully documented design with KiCad out of the box. You canā€™t even create a BOM from which you can order parts. Thatā€™s a problem.

Is that a good idea? Itā€™s half a solution. Maybe itā€™s enough to prove the point. It could be worth giving it some thought. I am not opposed to exploring that approach at all. Iā€™ll give it some thought.

I mean everything in this quote exactly reflects your doing in this discussion and on top you now ended up creating a fully meta post, claiming you are talking for the silent mayority. very fitting to the whole picture I have to say.

only for you to maybe reflect how this whole thread happened from my opinion:

  • you created this topic with an idea and you activly requested feedback on it. so far so normal.
  • you got feedback, some supportive, some other not so keen on your idea. also absolut normal.
  • but now it got out of hand: instead of recognizing the counter-arguments you dismissed them as invalid or simply ignored them.
  • instead you posted your initial arguments again, without realy adjusting them to the critics.
  • so you got the same counter arguments again (no suprise) and so the loop had startedā€¦

btw, this shows exactly, that you were not interested in a discussion in the first place. you think your idea is the way to go so no open ended discussion can ever happen.

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Unfortunately that is not all.
I see quite some veiled statements that could easily be interpreted as insults (he is better than the ā€œmobā€ he dismisses and does not want to engage with it.)

I think I got ā€œbannedā€ by him for repeatedly asking for some clarification and asking for a response to my idea of the ā€œVirtual Fieldsā€ which I later put in a different topic to keep it away from all this noise. Maybe he did give some answer that got lost in all the noise, but Iā€™m not going to read those 170 posts again. I know I have some faults, and one of them is not being able to recognize a good idea when itā€™s covered by too much noise. When I was working out some details about those ā€œVirtual Fieldsā€ I discovered itā€™s already implemented in KiCad. KiCad V6 is also still quite new to me.

He also writes whole paragraphs over how good he is and how much work he has done and how much experience he has. He clearly has a high opinion of himself, but that does not mean much to me. According to his statistics he has viewed 74 topics and read 743 posts in the 20 dayā€™s heā€™s a member. He does put a lot of effort in it, and not only in this post, so that at least is something positive.

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Am I correct in thinking that the only thing robomartin wants is to have a standardized field for ā€œpart numberā€ added to the symbol libraries so it can be used in scripts and such?

I gotta ask seriously. Is this thread actually going somewhere at this point? As a rule we donā€™t close ongoing threads if possible but pissing contests always get ugly.

Maybe close the thread and start fresh with a narrow focus?

Personally I canā€™t verify what is off topic in this thread at this point.

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OP requested the thread be closed so I honored the request.