[...] I don't think I'm alone when I say I've been waiting a long time for EAGLE to mature into the product I think it could be. If it gets closer to the Altium level while providing integration with the other Autodesk products, I think it'll be a winner.
For sure, if I was a brand new user without any Cadsoft baggage, I'd be all over it. Of course, with my luck, I chose TurboCAD and Lightwave along with EAGLE, so I might have some adapting to do...
I wonder whether buying Eagle is a good starting point for coming close to the Altium level. While I like Eagle for it's simplicity and customization options, I wonder whether the core of the software really can be improved to that level without doing essentially a rewrite. For example:
- Planes are nonexistant and have to be imitated by polygons
- Polygon fills are calculated as line-fills
- all modern Export formats are missing or realized as ULP (think ODB++/IPC-2581)
- There is no live-DRC and the DRC engine has very limited configuration options to apply rules to specific areas/devices
- 3D-Integration is non-existant, although Autodesk should have some very good people/existing software to change that
- Large designs are a problem. Maybe it's just the graphics as there seems to be no hardware acceleration.
- Very simple router, does not even support "stop at obstacle" or live clearance constraints
- Library management does not support corporate environments (DB connections)
- Layer stack configuration is awkward
- ULP language, although powerful, can only work on a static snapshot. There is no "live" API to the editor
- No impedance driven / high speed design rules/DRC
- ...
I could go on for some time, but I think you get the point.
None of that matters for entry to mid-level boards, and a skilled engineer/user can work around most of the limitations. For new users, it's in fact an advantage, since they are not overwhelmed by the many features they don't need.
But if you buy a enterprise level CAD package like the ones Autodesk offers, why on earth would you choose it because it comes with an integrated or closely linked entry-level PCB solution? It would make more sense to have a mid-to-high-level PCB solution coupled to it. Also, I doubt many EEs would use a mechanical CAD package to do their routing. The workflow is so different that I cannot think of a good combination of both interfaces. And if you use separate interfaces, there's no advantage over two standalone programs.
If they want to improve eagle to the point where it can compete with Altium, I doubt that there's much of the original code left untouched. All the really hard problems (especially DRC and router) are still unsolved to achieve that level with Eagle.
They could have hired a bunch of developers from the big ECAD companies and have more success in developing a high end suite from scratch. Now they have a software that needs a major overhaul, and when they do that to reach a reasonable level to make if worth combining with MCAD, chances are high they break compatibility/work-flow/legacy ULPs for existing users.
So essentially existing users will most likely be upset because their work-flow becomes more complicated and legacy tools will break; new professional users will be highly skeptical, since Eagle doesn't have a reputation as a high-end tool and Autodesk has little ECAD experience, and new hobbyist/SME users will not be able to pay the kind of money Autodesk is used to charge for their products. So the big question is, who is the target audience for this new solution that justifies development costs? Especially as they are trying hard to get rid of most of their existing users/community, which always was the strong point of Eagle.