From: eddieb@ERC.MsState.Edu (Eddie Brown)
Subject: Re: Why universities shouldn't write IC CAD tools
Organization: Mississippi State University - Microsystems Prototyping Lab
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:21:59 GMT


>From jscott@ERC.MsState.Edu Mon Oct 12 12:10:03 1992


           Why CAD companies shouldn't write IC CAD tools:

1.  Most tools don't work as advertised. Usually features written about in
    publications don't work properly, or the tool works only with other
    tools from the same company that don't work as advertised, with features 
    in publications that don't work properly, et. al.

2.  These tools usually have limited usefulness. They try to cover the
    entire gambit of the problem representing their customer datbase,
    which to most CAD companies is everyone with a workstations, ending
    up with a tool that doesn't a little bit of everything maybe fairly
    well.

3.  Although CAD Company designed tools are maintained, it is usually
    at great expense with the most popular support being a toll-free
    number where you reach a dial-an-answer-to-your-problem answering
    machine where the choices are:

           a) It will be fixed in our next release (When? the next
              DAC, of course).
           b) What bug?
           c) That is a problem with a company that we just purchased
              and all the support people quit because the stock options
              we gave them sucked.
           d) We no longer support that software. Didn't you know?

     In addition, CAD company designed CAD tools are difficult to
     maintain, for several reasons:

     Code is always documented but written by people who either haven't
     the slightest idea of how the software works or some who writes
     manuals like he writes code:

     started(getting);
         {
         FILE *assume_idiot_user;
         /* so you want to use our tool /*
         .;
         .;
         .;

      The tool is usually created by some well meaning garage shop 
      CAD engineers that make a really nice point solution to a CAD
      problem. They make a lot of money when their tool is bought
      by a huge CAD company. Then all the good algorithms and especialy
      the look-and-feel are dumped because the company who bought them
      has a competing tool in a group which uses the NIH approach to
      engineer. Net effect -> dead tool.

4.  Most tools are written in CAD-company ways. Then the large CAD 
    companies form consortiums to come up with standard-ways of doing
    things. Then they realize that although this will benefit the user,
    it will hurt their business by allowing the garage shop people
    (like, uhhhhhhh? university types) back into the game after they
    have just spent a fortune buying them out of the game.

5.  Source code is always kept 'secret'. This is to stop others from 
    finding out that the tool doesn't work as stated.

6.  I am tried of typing, I haven't run out of points.....

--



***********************************************************************
            Eddie Brown			Email: eddieb@erc.msstate.edu
      CAD/Systems Administrator        USmail: P. O. Box 6176
 Microsystem Prototyping Laboratory	       Miss. State, MS 39762
    Mississippi State University  	Phone: 601-325-1607
					  Fax: 601-325-3626
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