On 3/6/2018 4:18 PM, Robbert Lagerweij wrote: > Op 5-3-2018 om 18:49 schreef Wayne Stambaugh: >> All kidding aside, I was told by a very highly skilled board designer >> not to waste our time with auto-routers because no one actually uses >> them except for the simplest designs with lots of free board space and >> few or no routing restrictions. This is someone who uses Altium in his >> day job and has laid out far more boards than I have. I'm guessing >> auto-routers appeal to hobbyists rather than professionals. > I guess this begs the question, who is kicad targeting? Are we trying to > serve the professionals or also be a tool for the less skilled > (comparative) masses.
For those of you who are new here, the answer is professionals. If we can accommodate hobbyists without alienating professional designers all the better but I will not throw professional developers under the bus to appease the hobbyists. > >> There are far more useful features to add to KiCad >> than auto-routing. If we ever get to the point we are sitting around >> twiddling our thumbs, then we should work on an auto-router. > I absolutely agree, but after reading this article > https://wp.josh.com/2017/10/23/adventures-in-autorouting/, I did find > myself wondering what a Google Summer of Code Student (with some > opencl/machine learning/other buzzword skills) might be able to do with > the auto-router. I'm not going to hold my breath on that one. How many students do you know that are expert board designers? I'll lean on my developers who understand how to layout a board for this one. I'm not a buzz word kind of developer. ;) > > Robbert > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers > Post to : kicad-developers@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : kicad-developers@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
