I believe the CERN developer working on KiCAD is actually Polish, not French. His name's Tomasz Wlostowski I think.
Anyway - Kicad is still light years behind DipTrace, not to mention Altium.
There is not only one. There is two, Maciej Sum?inski and Tomasz Wlostowski. And yes, they are both Polish. Also there is the Javier Serrano, which I think don't write code, but is the more administrative guy in relation between CERN and KiCad.
But for anyone interrested, Javier is requesting success stories see:
https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg17537.htmlThis is what helps getting funding for KiCad, I am sure if you can show some success stories using KiCad in an educational environment, he would definitely also love to hear it.
I don't see your complaint. Is it that the official releases lag the development releases in features? Because duh. This stuff is brand spanking new and not tested in the wild. It's not suitable for general release yet. If you don't want to build the development version yourself, either stop complaining and wait for an official release to come or find some kind soul who has spared you the task of setting up a working build environment and download a binary.
Just a point - the Kicad developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.
There is a "stable" development branch in their Launchpad repository but it has not been updated since January.
It is not quite true that the Developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases. Please read this:
http://ci.kicad-pcb.org/job/kicad-doxygen/ws/Documentation/doxygen/html/md_Documentation_development_stable-release-policy.htmlFYI: CERN gives KiCAD some exposure in the updates section of their web site, also mentioning the soon to be coming differential pair routing and trace length matching features...
It has been committed now! See:
https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg17163.html
Just a point - the Kicad developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.
There is a "stable" development branch in their Launchpad repository but it has not been updated since January.
If they wanted to get more users (not more hackers/developers) they would believe in those.
Chatter on their IRC channel indicates they're targeting a new stable release this summer with the CERN stuff and a lot more polish.
Feature freeze has been initiated,
https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg17606.htmlAnd what is the deal with CERN releases ? I thought that CERN will create a separate branch aside of KiCad developers. Or not ? I also read somewhere that CERN should release something these days, right ?
There are so many information about CERN and KiCad around the web that I am lost, completely
They will push to the product branch (the development branch intended to always be in working state watched by the continious integration build server). But when new features are to be released, like for example the differential paris and length tuning, they would only "release" it when it is more or less ready for the public testing.
And what is the deal with CERN releases ? I thought that CERN will create a separate branch aside of KiCad developers. Or not ? I also read somewhere that CERN should release something these days, right ?
There are so many information about CERN and KiCad around the web that I am lost, completely
There isn't a CERN-kicad branch per se. The CERN team is doing their own work on the side, and then as work units become complete, merging them into the main code. The team is also working directly on the main code to fix up what's already there. AFAIK, while the work is being done it is not publicly available, though I could be wrong. They are "releasing" it in complete - as in, working, not as in fully polished - units.
Ohh well, you also explained it pretty well.
Page where that markup (.md) is rendered:
https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-source-mirror/blob/master/Documentation/development/road-map.md
Or just read it in the compiled dev docs.
I think KiCAD is actually usable, although it lacks some organizing as you say, and has a few annoying interface bugs. It feels like it could easily become a great tool, and I hope it gets there soon.
I agree it's usable, it's just a little frustrating that most interface bugs seem to be very minor issues. When using different rendering modes the hotkeys change, panning in OpenGL mode seems to be voodoo, some features are not implemented in different modes so I am constantly switching back and forth...
Does anyone know if there is any documentation on jumping into the Kicad code? I am happy to let the main developers work on differential routing if I can hack in consistent keyboard shortcuts.
There is not one single document as a quick start on digging into the code. I could find some references, but they might not help you at all. What you need to do is to get it building and figure out what you want to contribute with. I would suggest you to jump on the IRC channel #kicad@freenode. The main developers are not hanging around in there, but some other valuable contributers are. This should help you get started (if you haven't already).
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I apoligise if some of theese questions has already been answerd, but just trawled the thread and tried to answer some questions while reading.