Hi, I'm interested in using python to start writing a CAD program for electrical design. I just got done reading Steven Rubin's book, I've used "real" EDA tools, and I have an MSEE, so I know what I *want* at the end of this; I just have never taken on a programming task of this magnitude. I've seen that some are using python as a utility language for existing CAD environments, and I've also found some guy who's writing a 2d drafting tool with python, which is cool. I've been playing with python recently and so far have a SPICE parser half-written (it'll do production rules, but no syntax trees yet...) I'm wondering if the python experts can provide some opinion on python's efficiency/utility in the following areas, and perhaps where some things will need to be in C++ and/or pyrex:
1. Databases. I don't mean sql type database, but design databases, which contain all the components for any given design, including schematics, layout, simulation parameters, etc. I'm not concerned about python's ability to do fancy data structures, but I'm wondering how it'll go in terms of efficiency when things get really big. If the alternative is home-brewed C++ linked-lists, attributes, arrays, binary trees, memory management, etc., it looks like python's ability to do all this neatly without all the bugs waiting to happen if I did this myself are well worth the efficiency loss that may result from its uber-generality. 2. GUI. Yes, I know you can do guis with qt, gtk, tkinter, etc. I'm talking of fancy guis that do alpha blending, animations, nice shading/gradients, etc. in a quick, smooth, and slick way, such that moving a scroll bar or jiggling the mouse yields fast game-like response time, and which gives this program the feeling that you're actually in the 21st century... ie this is an *interactive* environment, and I f***king hate crass-hatching, so real colors is a must. Can this be portable between linux and windows? Is it possible to "do the whole thing" in opengl, even the 2d stuff? I guess I dont know enough about guis here. My fear is that my app will turn into x-hell if I try to do more than 8-bit colors in linux, with flashing background windows and complaints from the server about bit planes. Maybe I need to play with linux a bit more from the development side before commenting on this, since I get the feeling I'm working on old information here... 3. Computational stuff. I imagine the really heavy computing needs to be done in c++, especially if I'm stupid enough to write my own simulator, which my brain seems to want to do (I'm imagining a small homer simpson brain with a mind of its own telling me what to do...). But what about other things like rules and constraints about layout, routing, compaction, undo/redo, etc? These aren't really computationally expensive, I don't think, but do munge about quite a bit with the database. Is it likely I'll write something faster in C++? (answer: no). 4. Programmability. I imagine this is a slam-dunk, relatively speaking, to have a python interpreter as part-and-parcel of the design system. But how do I customize the command window to do custom things like adding special shortcuts (eg '?' brings up help, or help on commands a la Matlab), or making an API into the CAD program? I'm not sure conceptually how to merge an embedded python interpreter into the rest of the CAD program in an intelligent way, so some stuff is exposed, but not all, and which interacts dynamically with the graphical portion so that, for instance, context-sensitive help is available in the console window, or so you can access information about the currently selected object, or so you can do stuff from the command line that is based on your current graphical context. 5. Threads and parallelism. One of the things about this is that I'd like there to be some real-time simulator running so when you change the values of parts, the output changes, and I'd like to be able to take advantage of mulitple processors, or dual-core, or whatever. I've seen fake multi-threading in python (read about it, but I haven't done it), but that doesn't really use any extra cycles from a separate processor. So why am I thinking about this? I've used a few "real" CAD systems, and from using them, it's obvious the modus is to kludge shit together over 20 years and screw the user experience. So basically I'd like to take over the world with my nifty new python-based cad system because it's so beautiful and fun to use, and so flexible that my time to market for any given new idea is 5x shorter than the existing tools. Any comments on the above from people who've actually written stuff would be greatly appreciated! :) thanks ms -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
