Re: gEDA: XML in EDA

[Magnus Danielson <magda-at-NOSPAMnetinsight_dot_se>]

From: "Alex Zamfirescu" <mno1@ricochet.net>
Subject: gEDA: XML in EDA
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 19:15:46 +0900

> Dear Experts:
> 
> What do you think about 
> 
> "XML tools debut for EDA" at
> http://www.eet.com/story/OEG20000215S0014
> ?
> Two other questions:
> 
> Is there a need for anything else then an EDA XML viewer?
> 
> Is the XML implementation path cheaper 
> since the DOM is there to play with?

I have briefly looked at the EDA DTD that they provide, and it is pretty large.
My gut-feeling is that it tries to do too much and one really has to define
a small subset of it to be allowed for some particular case like a netlist or
whatever. My concern is that so much is allowed, that you may run into trouble.
However, there is a good point in that a viewer can be made generic, but my
concerns relates to tools operating and exchanging files, not viewers of the
data.

Thus, if one is to take such an DTD into use for EDA, one has to at least
define subsets for each type of type of exchange (netlist, PCB layout,
constraints, BOM, etc, etc.).

Cheers,
Magnus