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IPC-2581

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rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I have been discussing the advantages of a common CAD format for all
manufacturing data for printed circuit boards. IPC-2581 is a new
standard that is being developed for this.

Does anyone know much about this standard? I know that it has no
current support from the tool vendors. Is this at all likely to be
accepted in the industry? Are any vendors considering adopting it?
Is there any interest from users or manufacturers?
 
B

Brad Velander

Jan 1, 1970
0
Another IPC boondoggle. They failed at GenCAM and they will fail again with
this attempt.
Design by committee just doesn't work and the IPC doesn't realize this.
Along with the fact that they have nothing that industry (CAD design
industry) wants and actually everything that the industry doesn't want, it
ends up being transferable designs through a backdoor.
 
C

CBFalconer

Jan 1, 1970
0
Brad Velander wrote: *** and top-posted - fixed ***
Another IPC boondoggle. They failed at GenCAM and they will fail
again with this attempt. Design by committee just doesn't work
and the IPC doesn't realize this. Along with the fact that they
have nothing that industry (CAD design industry) wants and
actually everything that the industry doesn't want, it ends up
being transferable designs through a backdoor.

Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
irrelevant material. I fixed this one. See the following links:

<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/> (taming google)
<http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/> (newusers)
 
B

Brad Velander

Jan 1, 1970
0
CBFalconer,
Who appointed you to the Usenet etiquette police? Got a problem with it,
take it up with Usenet. You know how far you will get! Gee, I don't see a
single Usenet source amongst your irrelevant material, why not?
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
It is best to just ignore CB's postings on this. Just as his posts
have no impact on top posting, asking CBF to stop his posts has no
effect. It is just better to live and let live in the wilderness we
call the Internet.



CBFalconer,
    Who appointed you to the Usenet etiquette police? Got a problem with it,
take it up with Usenet. You know how far you will get! Gee, I don't see a
single Usenet source amongst your irrelevant material, why not?
--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.


Brad Velander wrote:  *** and top-posted - fixed ***
Please do not top-post.  Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
irrelevant material.  I fixed this one.  See the following links:
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I am aware that an earlier attempt was no successful. But why does
that mean this attempt will automatically fail? Your statement that
"design by committee just doesn't work" does not seem accurate.
Aren't most standards done by committees? It is the rare standard
that a single person (or a small design group) produces and then
becomes a standard. Most are deliberate, thought out, significant
efforts by representatives from the major stakeholders. The IPC
standards are no exception in that area. The "committee" is made up
of representatives from many of the largest companies in the field.

If this standard included nothing that the industry wants, then why
are they developing it?

Yes, one of the reasons that the initial attempt failed is that the
spec is inclusive enough that a design can be fully represented and
therefor imported into any layout package as well as other tools.
That is the power of it to the user and of course that is a concern by
the tool vendors. But it is the users who buy the tools the the
vendors create. I wonder how long the tool vendors can hold out if
open source tools pick up the idea and carry it forward.

Rick
 
B

Brad Velander

Jan 1, 1970
0
Rick,
I hear your points but how many successful companies or products are
created by committees? Let alone committees that meet only several times per
year. There is a reason for saying s like a camel is a horse designed by
committee. Yes committees can write the standards but what the IPC is trying
here goes beyond the standard just as GenCAM did.

It really doesn't matter what the customer wants, we (a majority of CAD
designers) have wanted portability for decades now, nobody has written it
into their code yet. I have seen it presented to the tool vendors so many
times. And the tool vendors simply ignore it, they write a new import wizard
to assist in converting your files to their software but these days I even
see less and less export netlist formats from the schematic tools. Reducing
or eliminating even working with a best of Schematic tool and a best PCB
tool. The CAD tool vendors just won't implement it because they see it as a
quick escape route for customers they otherwise view as having a significant
impediment to changing tools when they might desire.

Maybe I have just become too much of a pessimist as the years go by but
I prefer to look at it as realism since my experience shows me this is the
way it is. I am also an IPC member, just so that you know I am not just
ditzing them for some unfounded reason. They are a good organization but
sometimes they reach too far and are looking through rose colored glasses.
Maybe the members of this standard committee just refuse to acknowledge the
vendors hardened stance against portability and keep hoping. I feel they
would be best served to concentrate their efforts on working with Valor on
ODB++ to improve it's facilities and commonality across the industry. And
with the other vendors to have them more fully and correctly implement ODB++
within their tools, then you could work on an ODB++ import tool with those
vendors as though it was a path for them to obtain new customers through
providing that import capability to prospective customers. Same horse just
dyed a different color.

--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.

I am aware that an earlier attempt was no successful. But why does
that mean this attempt will automatically fail? Your statement that
"design by committee just doesn't work" does not seem accurate.
Aren't most standards done by committees? It is the rare standard
that a single person (or a small design group) produces and then
becomes a standard. Most are deliberate, thought out, significant
efforts by representatives from the major stakeholders. The IPC
standards are no exception in that area. The "committee" is made up
of representatives from many of the largest companies in the field.

If this standard included nothing that the industry wants, then why
are they developing it?

Yes, one of the reasons that the initial attempt failed is that the
spec is inclusive enough that a design can be fully represented and
therefor imported into any layout package as well as other tools.
That is the power of it to the user and of course that is a concern by
the tool vendors. But it is the users who buy the tools the the
vendors create. I wonder how long the tool vendors can hold out if
open source tools pick up the idea and carry it forward.

Rick
 
W

Wim Lewis

Jan 1, 1970
0
Who appointed you to the Usenet etiquette police? Got a problem with it,
take it up with Usenet. You know how far you will get! Gee, I don't see a
single Usenet source amongst your irrelevant material, why not?

I'm not sure if you're being facetious or if you just don't have any
clue about Usenet. At any rate, you're free to continue top-posting,
but it makes you look obnoxious, and makes your posts harder to read.
 
B

Brad Velander

Jan 1, 1970
0
Wim
Sorry if you have really have some difficulty reading text posted at the
top of a message. What happens if there is no quoted message? Do you still
have problems? Sorry that this message must obviously pose a problem for you
also. Idiot!

Obnoxious is the minority that pretends there are these rules and codes
of conduct restricting the free flow of information without culturally and
educationally restrictive artificial boundaries. As for Usenet, it is those
that keep posting these artficial silly rules and conduct and bullying
others (sometimes culturally unfamiliar or just plain not well educated ro
familiar with Usenet) that don't understand Usenet. Usenet is for the free
and open exchange of ideas and discussion, not for a bunch of silly
self-appointed dweebs to inflict their artificial rules and conduct upon
other by bullying people into conforming to their artificial standards.
 
C

CBFalconer

Jan 1, 1970
0
Brad said:
.... snip ...

Obnoxious is the minority that pretends there are these rules and
codes of conduct restricting the free flow of information without
culturally and educationally restrictive artificial boundaries. As
for Usenet, it is those that keep posting these artficial silly
rules and conduct and bullying others (sometimes culturally
unfamiliar or just plain not well educated ro familiar with Usenet)
that don't understand Usenet. Usenet is for the free and open
exchange of ideas and discussion, not for a bunch of silly self-
appointed dweebs to inflict their artificial rules and conduct upon
other by bullying people into conforming to their artificial
standards.

Obviously you consider a polite request to observe the behaviour
standards specified for Usenet as 'obnoxious', even when the
request is accompanied with references and justification. It is
hard to understand such people.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Rick,
    I hear your points but how many successful companies or products are
created by committees? Let alone committees that meet only several times per
year. There is a reason for saying s like a camel is a horse designed by
committee. Yes committees can write the standards but what the IPC is trying
here goes beyond the standard just as GenCAM did.

IPC is not trying to create a "product" or a company. They are
creating a standard for the exchange of manufacturing information. It
is that simple. You have also ignored my statement that the standard
committee is staffed by representatives from the various CAD
companies. Why would the CAD companies create a standard that they
themselves don't want? I don't see where the standard effort is
inherently a bad thing just because it is done by a committee.

    It really doesn't matter what the customer wants, we (a majority of CAD
designers) have wanted portability for decades now, nobody has written it
into their code yet. I have seen it presented to the tool vendors so many
times. And the tool vendors simply ignore it, they write a new import wizard
to assist in converting your files to their software but these days I even
see less and less export netlist formats from the schematic tools. Reducing
or eliminating even working with a best of Schematic tool and a best PCB
tool. The CAD tool vendors just won't implement it because they see it asa
quick escape route for customers they otherwise view as having a significant
impediment to changing tools when they might desire.

Of course no one has written portability into their tools. That would
allow customers to change to the tools of their competitors and done
nothing to allow them to change to *their* tools. But if the playing
field is level by most vendors working with this standard, then there
will be a significant advantage to adding it, customer satisfaction.
If most vendors support it, then the ones who don't will not win as
many new customers. Yes, that will take a bootstrap of some sort.
But the real advantage for users and fabricators is the utility of the
standard. If used correctly, it will allow your entire design to be
represented in one file instead of the many files required now. That
can be enough of an advantage for customers to demand the interface.

    Maybe I have just become too much of a pessimist as the years go by but
I prefer to look at it as realism since my experience shows me this is the
way it is. I am also an IPC member, just so that you know I am not just
ditzing them for some unfounded reason. They are a good organization but
sometimes they reach too far and are looking through rose colored glasses..
Maybe the members of this standard committee just refuse to acknowledge the
vendors hardened stance against portability and keep hoping. I feel they
would be best served to concentrate their efforts on working with Valor on
ODB++ to improve it's facilities and commonality across the industry. And
with the other vendors to have them more fully and correctly implement ODB++
within their tools, then you could work on an ODB++ import tool with those
vendors as though it was a path for them to obtain new customers through
providing that import capability to prospective customers. Same horse just
dyed a different color.

I think it is a very long row to hoe because of the resistance of CAD
tool vendors and the reluctance of the contract manufacturing houses
to learn a new standard. I also think it will be a painful transition
as the standard will be interpreted/implemented differently by the
different vendors. But given the current state of communication of
manufacturing data (e.g. using a "readme" file) I expect this change
is long overdue.

The transition will not be done by the small vendors like us (or
should I say me?). It will only take a few of the large customers
saying that want the new standard and it will be accepted by the
vendors.

Rick

PS, I don't agree with the idea that posting style should be
mandated. But it is certainly not worth arguing about. Just ignore
things like that. Like they said in "Chinatown", "Forget about it
Jack, it's just the Internet".
 
I

IB

Jan 1, 1970
0
Gosh, this top posting is much easier to read, don't have to keep using the
blasted scroll bar to see the response.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Gosh, this top posting is much easier to read, don't have to keep using the
blasted scroll bar to see the response.

The response the bottom posting advocates will give you is that a
reply should be properly trimmed to only include the relevant portions
of a quote. Notice that the quoted text in your reply was not even
relevant to your reply and could have been snipped entirely except for
the fact that you would quoting it as an example of top posting. But
either way we had to scroll down to read it.

Bottom posting is not bad, but failure to properly trim the quotes is
a real PITA. There are a couple of mailing lists where the primary
participants do little or no trimming and a very, very long message
results with quotes six deep and single sentence replies.

Rick
 
C

CBFalconer

Jan 1, 1970
0
rickman said:
.... snip ...

Bottom posting is not bad, but failure to properly trim the
quotes is a real PITA. There are a couple of mailing lists
where the primary participants do little or no trimming and
a very, very long message results with quotes six deep and
single sentence replies.

A horrible example is (maybe was) the Netscape help groups.
 
B

Brad Velander

Jan 1, 1970
0
Rick,
It is to create a common standard and thus a common product standard.
The standard itself is not bad in my eyes, just that its' likelihood of
success seems very low to me given past history. With all of it's outputs
one could write a generic importer for any system generating the common
output format and then there would be portability.

One CAD tool vendor doesn't make for "various CAD companies". The
committee contains only Mentor and RSI, which is now owned by Mentor.

I don't know the intimate details of the prior GenCAM but it is
disheartening to any future derivations that I don't believe a single
company ever adopted the standard. The only reason that ODB++ exists is that
it was a private venture independent of mutual industry acceptance. And
don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this standard, I just don't
expect to ever see it fly because the CAD industry has shown many times that
it is not really interested. But it will begrudgingly play along (maybe only
partially) if the technology is driven from the down stream processes and
the cries and screams of customers.

Possibly that is the reason for Valor's success with ODB++ over GenCAM.
Their whole focus from the start seemed to me to be on the downstream stake
holders. I don't know the details but thinking about the history I can
recall that as my limited recollection. I still recall the introduction of
RS-274X Gerber, many fab shops jumped on it but others were not so forward
thinking and it took the actual CAD designers pushing them because we were
tired of dealing with aperture lists and simple aperture errors screwing up
a board here or there. Same with the CAD tool vendors, some jumped, some
needing pushing.

--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.


IPC is not trying to create a "product" or a company. They are
creating a standard for the exchange of manufacturing information. It
is that simple. You have also ignored my statement that the standard
committee is staffed by representatives from the various CAD
companies. Why would the CAD companies create a standard that they
themselves don't want? I don't see where the standard effort is
inherently a bad thing just because it is done by a committee.
 
B

Brad Velander

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chuck,
Where is the relevance of your references? Who created and voted on
those references? They are a fools attempt to control and restrict something
that in it's inception was intended to be open and unrestricted by people
exactly like yourself. It is hard to understand who exactly you think you
are and your role to police top/bottom posting on Usenet groups.

Your very words imply that those rules/suggestions are somehow
sanctioned and official. "...to observe the behaviour standards
specified..." Specified by whom, who are you or who wrote those references?
You do not list one Usent reference. Show me one official Usenet document
reference the use of either top or bottom posting! You're a control freak,
something isn't right unless it meets your limited restrictive view of what
is right or correct.

Heaven forbid you would ever subscribe to some of the groups I monitor,
horrors..., they post using unicode in foreign languages. And bottom
posting, sometimes you have to scroll through 3 or 4 pages of replies and
counter replies just to find an original thought or addition that you
haven't already read 3 or 4 times.

Let me ask, do you bottom post your emails? Now I don't know how you
will answer but I have never seen anybody bottom post an email. Why not if
you think it is so important to forum posts, what's the difference?
 
O

Oliver Betz

Jan 1, 1970
0
Brad Velander said:
Where is the relevance of your references? Who created and voted on
those references?

unimportant. These references IMNSHO don't need to be "external"
justifications. It's up to you to understand the idea and decide
whether to follow.
They are a fools attempt to control and restrict something

nack. They thought about politeness and efficiency.
that in it's inception was intended to be open and unrestricted by people

it's less a question of "restrict" but more of being polite.

I agree that top posting, maybe even with a full quote is _impolite_
to the recipient of a message (because those postings are inefficient
to read).

Since there are many recipients, the sender should spend some work on
the message.

BTW: This includes also proper formatting. I don't like to be pressed
to trim lines when I reply. I ask a new poster _once_ to set his news
client correctly. Next time I simply don't reply even if I could
commit something useful.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was aware of the necessity being polite, he
wrote: "Entschuldigen sie, dass der Brief so lang geworden ist, ich
hatte keine Zeit für einen kürzeren." - please excuse that the letter
became so long, I hadn't time for a shorter one. Today it seems to be
less important.

And yes, the same applies to e-mails. Certainly I take the time to
create properly written and formatted mails. What else?

Oliver
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
unimportant. These references IMNSHO don't need to be "external"
justifications. It's up to you to understand the idea and decide
whether to follow.


nack. They thought about politeness and efficiency.


it's less a question of "restrict" but more of being polite.

I agree that top posting, maybe even with a full quote is _impolite_
to the recipient of a message (because those postings are inefficient
to read).

Since there are many recipients, the sender should spend some work on
the message.

BTW: This includes also proper formatting. I don't like to be pressed
to trim lines when I reply. I ask a new poster _once_ to set his news
client correctly. Next time I simply don't reply even if I could
commit something useful.

This is exactly why I stopped worrying about whether everyone top
posts and trims or not. The incessant reminders have the potential of
turning every thread into an argument over religious beliefs on top/
bottom posting.

CBF, I have to ask, is it really helping?
 
O

Oliver Betz

Jan 1, 1970
0
rickman wrote:

[...]
This is exactly why I stopped worrying about whether everyone top
posts and trims or not. The incessant reminders have the potential of
turning every thread into an argument over religious beliefs on top/
bottom posting.

sorry, that's likely a misunderstanding, my wording ("trim") was not
clear:

I meant that I don't like to _reformat long lines_ as Rob Gaddi
produced (although I bet Sylpheed is able to produce correct postings)
to enable me putting quote marks in front of.

I did _not_ mean that I'm too lazy to delete irrelevant lines of text.

After all, I wouldn't ask someone to stop top-posting or sending long
lines unless I have to tell also something on-topic. But if I reply
anyway, I dare to point out that I disagree with his posting style.

Oliver
 
C

Chris H

Jan 1, 1970
0
Brad Velander said:
Chuck,
Where is the relevance of your references? Who created and voted on
those references?

It was the consensus of those who started the NG's Some 20 years ago.
Heaven forbid you would ever subscribe to some of the groups I monitor,
horrors..., they post using unicode in foreign languages.

If that is what the group agreed than that is fine.

Every now and again we get people who join a particular NG and than want
to ignore the conventions of that group. It is just plain rudeness.

The trouble is when the4 net started there was an entry qualification*
nor they let in anyone and the level of discourse in some groups is
akin to a kindergarten.


*At one time you had to be at least an under grad in a
scientific/computing discipline or at a government (or other) research
site to even know the Internet existed. Now any boorish idiot can get
on .
 
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