( ESNUG 446 Item 16 ) ------------------------------------------- [09/01/05]
Subject: ( DVcon 04 #8 ) Yup, I Hate Those GUI Design Entry Tools, Too
> PET ROCKS Talk about brutal receptions! Users went out of their way to
> make fun of graphical design entry tools like Summit or Mentor Renoir.
>
> "How about graphical design entry tools like Summit
> Visual Elite or Mentor HDL Designer (Renoir)?"
>
> Hate : ############################################################ 83%
>
> Like : ############ 17%
>
> Guess these tools have gone the way of pet rocks, furbies, and hula hoops.
> Maybe if they gave them away for free like the built-in code coverage
> tools commercial HDL simulators, it might help. But then again...
>
> - from http://www.deepchip.com/items/dvcon04-08.html
From: Dave Weinzierl <davew=user domain=npe-inc pot calm>
Hi, John,
I agree, graphical design entry tools have been totally rejected by the
market.
I do think however there is some room for improvement in how most design
and verification engineers enter code using vi (or vim) and/or emacs.
Although emacs is extremely powerful, most engineers are not power users
and can only do the most basic operations. Many vi users are opening
1 file at a time and cd'ing all over the place to find things.
For a tool to make things better it should do these things and probably
some more I'm missing:
1. Emulate vim and/or emacs key bindings very well.
2. Provide much better navigation then the usual search and grep to
easily move between files and find modules, signals, etc.
3. Allow for customized compile/build scripts and clicking on errors to
go to the source for all lint tools and simulator error formats
4. Easily connect to popular revision control systems.
5. Have features like emacs Verilog AUTO to save typing.
I feel like we need to take a tip from software engineers that have these
type of tools, but at the same time be careful to not go overboard on this
GUI junk, most hardware engineers reject a fat, slow GUI of any kind.
One new tool I have been looking at is InnerLoop from Posedge Software,
http://www.posedgesoft.com It's a new company, but I think they are on
the right track.
I'd be interested in other peoples comments on what kind of editors and
tools they use to enter and navigate designs.
- David Weinzierl
North Pole Engineering Minneapolis, MN
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