For the benefit of readers here who do not feel up to reading through the long thread on the KiCad forums that repeated this discussion:
Unbelievable as it may seem to at least one frustrated poster here, us KiCad developers *do* see this behavior as a feature, not a bug.
While we will continue to add features and refine KiCad's editing tools to make it faster and more capable (for example, by adding pin/gate swapping) in the future, we will not be changing to a model that requires explicit "connect" and "disconnect" actions to modify the netlist. (Note that unlike the assumptions made by some in this thread, this does not mean that the schematic editor is unaware of the netlist -- it juts means that the netlist is not a separate "entity" that can be interacted with through explicit connect/disconnect actions).
I suggest that users who cannot approach KiCad's paradigm here with an open mind should probably just move on and use other CAD tools. None of us will be offended! There are a number of reasons why KiCad can't and won't be the perfect tool for everyone. If there is enough demand for an open-source CAD tool that works more like Mentor Graphics, perhaps someone will create one.
This is not summary but a single sided dismissal...
People point out things where Kicad is suboptimal, some with bad, some with good intentions. People also ask for stupid things.. People will be people, doing both smart and stupid.
It is up to the listener to sort it out. Value of many other people opinions is that it gives us opportunities to learn new things, that are beyond our current scope of vision.
As for netlist / schematic thing that person mentioned, discussion directly went to negative .
It is unnecessary. And immediately shifted discussion to semantics...
Schematic diagram tools are BOTH a vehicle to create information for PCB layout program about component interconnections (netlist) AND also to create human readable interconnect diagrams. And BOM and all other information needed for production process.
There is also very important issue (that programmers should be well aware of) of schematic/PCB maintenance/iterative development.
Many electronic devices are developed in incremental steps, where schematic is ripped partially and redrawn and things are added and subtracted. During process, you redraw and refine symbols and whole schematic. You move blocks around and rearrange them for better clarity..
Kicad does well with it's "drag" and "move" functions. Both are deliberate choice of user. "Drag" will drag the bungee cord wires and user will have to edit wire layout to make it nice and tidy again. But endpoints will stay connected to where I connected them. I don't have to verify all 100 pins CONNECTIONS from the scratch...
If I want to detach component and severe connections i do "move".. It works perfectly.
But If I do horizontal swap of component (mirror) , Kicad will happily DISCONNECT whatever I connected and than silently CONNECT any pins to any wires that happen to align... Silently is key word here...
And I am deliberately not mentioning netlists here. Netlist IS internal thing. I'm talking that my schematic got scrambled without warning. Things are wrongly connected.
Eagle won't do that for instance... Altium OTOH will happily both keep old and add new connections on intersections, but online ERC will show a warning there are problems ....
What is best way to deal with it? That is going to be hard answer. Every man and his dog will have different solution..
But I would like at least some warning that something was disconnected and then reconnected in stupid manner. Maybe when you do that, wires get pulled back from previous connection point and marked with X as a unconnected endpoint. I personally think bungee cords are good solution. You rotate/ mirror and then it is a quick cleanup sorting wires to tidy them up.
Is this a deal breaker? No, it does not make Kicad unusable. Would Kicad be better by dealing with this better? Sure, I think it would be great improvement...