gEDA-user: footprints -- novice`s problems

[Dan McMahill]

DJ Delorie wrote:
>>instantiating each one and verifying that it works?
> 
> 
> You don't really know if it works until you fab a board and try to
> solder the part to it.
> 

And I'd argue that even that isn't enough to qualify as a thorough 
verification.  I might do a proto board without silk or soldermask and 
everything looks good except that the silk and soldermask for the 
footprint is messed up.  Or I might be able to hand solder it but not 
have it be reliable or able to be reliably assembled in a factory 
environment.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do what we can because every little bit 
helps.  I'm just saying there are many different levels of verification :)


But on the instantiating each one bit, I've verified that at least there 
are no m4 syntax errors (there used to be).  I have most of whats needed 
in place to automatically instantiate all footprints.  In fact, we could 
probably use some of the gedasymbols.org scripts to have pcb try to load 
every single footprint and spit out a list of any which may have pcb 
syntax errors in them.

-Dan