Time to move away from Altium?

[mobbarley]

My argument will then be that because there are more different vendors / compiler versions / dialect (c/c++/c#) and library's. It may be as easy to find an expert in Delphi than C.

It's not.
No programmer hired at Altium is expected to know Delphi, in fact it was very rare to find anyone who had ever used it AFAIK.
Not that it matters. It doesn't take long for a good programmer to come up to speed on it.
getting up to speed on the actual product code, now that's a different matter entirely.

Dave.

Here is a little test from their pre-interview screening:

Code: [Select]


Procedure DiscoverSomethingInteresting(Input : Array Of Integer; Out x, y, z : Integer);
Var
    i, j, k : Integer;
    w       : Integer;
Begin
    z := -MaxInt;
    For i := 1 To Length(Input) Do
    Begin
        For j := 0 To Length(Input) - i Do
        Begin
            w := 0;
            For k := 0 To i - 1 Do
            Begin
                w := w + Input[j+k];
            End;
            If w > z Then
            Begin
                z       := w;
                x       := j;
                y       := j+i-1;
            End;
        End;
    End;
End;


1(a)    What interesting property of the input array is the routine below attempting to discover?
1(b)    Do you believe there are any logical errors in the routine below?
1(c)    What problems, if any, would you anticipate if this routine was deployed in a commercial application?
1(d)   Re-implement this routine in a form you would be happy to put your name to. Any language is acceptable for this task.



Notes : The sample above is written in the Delphi language. The array is zero based and the Length function returns the number of elements in the array.

Disclaimer : Exclusive of Friday afternoons the above is not indicative of Altium's coding standards.

As well as some garbage questions like this:

Here at Altium we are passionate about the impact of technology. 

We are interested to know more about how you think technology can change the world?

[gxti]

No programmer hired at Altium is expected to know Delphi, in fact it was very rare to find anyone who had ever used it AFAIK.
Not that it matters. It doesn't take long for a good programmer to come up to speed on it.
getting up to speed on the actual product code, now that's a different matter entirely.

Agreed, I started my current job in a Python shop not knowing the language at all. Within a year I knew more about Python than most people at the company, and had almost forgotten Perl. Now I couldn't write a Perl one-liner to save my life. The easiest way to learn a new programming language is to have a reason to need it. Once you have that, the rest is gravy.

As for the language itself, it's a non-issue. I'd prefer Altium stay on the language it's on now than to go through a rewrite, because ground-up rewrites of large pieces of software are almost without exception a total disaster. If you think it's buggy now, try having underpaid minions who don't understand the original design decisions burn it to the ground...

[ebclr]

Does not exist a more productive language than Delphi, The problem is that Embarcadero kills the product with wrong commercial actions, who break the confidence on the availability of the tool at a reasonable price, nobody can use something that changes every 6 months  and needs to be paid again, and specially most components writers abandon the boat on the glorious time of Delphi 5 have undreads of components available, now you can count less than 100 .

[koko79]

Cadence has an Altium schematic and PCB importer.

It is on this feature matrix - http://www.parallel-systems.co.uk/matrix/
I have heard they do a proof of concept translation for you so you can see the results before buying.

[taydin]

Well, at least you guys can discuss and evaluate whether it makes sense to buy Altuim from a technical point of view. I inquired about the price of an altium license here in Turkey, and the base price with absolutely nothing else is 8000 Euros  Add 18% VAT to it, that's 9500 Euros  So for me, that's the end of discussion right there grrrr

[ebclr]

You can use a striped down version for free with public files on your design

www.circuitmaker.com

[DerekG]

the base price with absolutely nothing else is 8000 Euros  Add 18% VAT to it, that's 9500 Euros  So for me, that's the end of discussion right there grrrr

Then take a look at DipTrace. I started with Protel/Altium in 1988 ......... and moved over to DipTrace some 3 years ago & have never looked back. I now only use Altium for some legacy designs ........ plus DipTrace 3.2 can now import both Altium Schematics & PCB designs

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/diptrace/diptrace-3-2/

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/diptrace/i-just-tried-diptrace-for-the-first-time-and-i-like-it-a-lot!/

[hammy]

I inquired about the price of an altium license here in Turkey, and the base price with absolutely nothing else is 8000 Euros  Add 18% VAT to it, that's 9500 Euros  So for me, that's the end of discussion right there grrrr

I inquired the prices here in germany for Altium Designer and Orcad Professional +CIS in the last weeks. The price for Altium was nearly twice the price for OrCAD including support.
I'm a small company and these prices are not made for a private person. However, I got with OrCAD for me some more usefull features and options (SI, central SQL DB for components, more DRC rules, delay tuning) and it is written in 64bit c/c++ and not this delphi rubbish! Of course, this is just my personal opinion.

I worked already with AD for several DDR-RAM projects and I'm confident the change to OrCAD is a wise decision. I'm not thrilled what I had seen in the AD18 beta videos. AD is good software, but not for this price (even with discount)!

I don't like the new online Altium stuff. You become depended on their services and later they can do with the price anything they want. Once you become depended it is very hard to move to a different software. And if you don't plan to use the online stuff, why pay for it?

As a private person I would buy DipTrace. Good feature set, good price, excellent software.

Cheers
hammy

[taydin]

The base price for Orcad here was about 12000 USD, so about the same as altium. It's funny, there is a promotion for US customers to get a perpetual (no bullshit) Orcad Standard license for 430 dollars  I tried to buy it by contacting the USA distributor, but was referred to the local dealer here.

But I agree with you on the choice between altium and orcad. If budget wouldn't have been an issue, I would definitely have picked orcad, mainly because of it's pspice. Orcad had circuit simulation for a very long time and I think it is very mature. I didn't get that impression when I asked about the simulator in Altium.

[taydin]

Then take a look at DipTrace. I started with Protel/Altium in 1988 ......... and moved over to DipTrace some 3 years ago & have never looked back. I now only use Altium for some legacy designs ........ plus DipTrace 3.2 can now import both Altium Schematics & PCB designs

Diptrace is on my TODO list of cad packages to try. Already evaluated circuitstudio. One thing that I hated about circuit studio is when you try to add a new part and open the "vault" thing, and then search for something, it gets a table with seemingly hundreds of columns, each column a few millimeters wide. Impossible to read and utterly useless. You have to know the part name very specifically and then the table has less entries and less number of columns.

[Cerebus]

Diptrace is on my TODO list of cad packages to try. Already evaluated circuitstudio.

One thing that I hated about circuit studio is...You have to know the part name very specifically and then the table has less entries and less number of columns.

If you hated that, then you are going to hate Diptrace's library. Exactly the same problem, you need to know the specific name that diptrace have given to a part if you're going to find it quickly.

[DerekG]

If you hated that, then you are going to hate Diptrace's library. Exactly the same problem, you need to know the specific name that diptrace have given to a part if you're going to find it quickly.

DipTrace ver 3 has improved things a lot in the library department. There is a fellow on the DipTrace Forum who has written a script to search the entire library database & return the results.

However, one of the easiest way to run the library is to simply select the generic footprint ie SOT-23, DO-114, TO-220 etc & add that to your personal library, check (& change the dimensions if incorrect) then save it under the name you want.

Only takes a minute or so to do & you should always check the dimensions of the parts someone else has designed.

The world revolves not just around Altium

Quite right.

Tesla's job offer for high speed layout engineers with excellent knowledge of Allegro design tools.

If I remember correctly, Free_Electron in this forum works for Tesla ............ and he is one of the most proficient Altium users I've ever conversed with.

Maybe Tesla is moving on ............

[Cerebus]

If you hated that, then you are going to hate Diptrace's library. Exactly the same problem, you need to know the specific name that diptrace have given to a part if you're going to find it quickly.

DipTrace ver 3 has improved things a lot in the library department. There is a fellow on the DipTrace Forum who has written a script to search the entire library database & return the results.

I've used version 3 and frankly I think the library still stinks. It stinks a little less perhaps but it's still highly odiferous. Sit a new user down and ask them to find a standard n x m 0.1 inch through hole header and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Needing an end user to come along and ameliorate things by writing a script to search the whole library kind of points up the weakness of the library's most fundamental user interface, the inability to quickly and easily pick out a part you know (for a fact) is there without knowing the precise name that part is stored under.