We seem to be locking horns today ;-)
On 05:58 PM 14/03/2001 -0800, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax said:
>It's important to realize that CAD programs may be thoroughly checked for
>bugs, but when they hit the real world, they may be fed data that was not
>anticipated and therefore the behavior of the program has not been tested.
Abd ul-Rahman, I have a problem with the manner in which you are expressing
things in your post?
Are you saying it is OK to introduce a bug in a new version of software
that did not exist in a previous version?
There is a bug. Drill file does not match Drill Drawing = BUG.
Protel allows holes in surface pads *but* doesn't mark those holes in the
Drill Drawing. The program does however recognise that a hole should be
drilled there (it is in the drill file). So there is a bug. Drill file
does not match drill drawing = BUG. No excuses or discussions on this,
surely. This bug did not exist in previous versions of PCB so the argument
about real-world data is a bit facetious - I think that after all this time
Protel could reasonably have realised that non-zero sm holes were used in
the field. If they wish to change this then making the drill files
erroneous is hardly a sensible method.
You are broadening the subject to now include your opinion on how it should
be fixed, which is great. However, I have found that some of your
discussion on the matter seems to be clouding the issue that there is a
bug. I think you should clearly accept the bug and then clearly move on to
express your opinion in how to fix it - not mix the two aspects to the
discussion.
I think:
1) Protel should make sure the drill drawing and the drill file match,
exactly. I would consider doing this by generating the drill file
internally and using the results to make the drill drawing. The same
process would be used for both then - no code synchronisation issues at all.
2) Protel should consult on what, if anything, should be done about
continuing to allow/not allow non-zero hole sizes to be entered.
In order not to break existing designs Protel *must* maintain support for
non-zero hole sizes in surface pads but there could be appropriate DRC
warnings. New versions of the software could prevent accidental entry of
non-zero hole sizes in surface pads by, as you say, greying out the hole
size edit box, in the Change Pad dialog, if the layer is not multilayer.
Ian Wilson
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