Subject:
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Re: The future of LDraw?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad
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Date:
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Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:48:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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21307 times
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> In lugnet.cad, Joshua Delahunty wrote:
> > LeoCAD directly imports LDRAW parts. There's no need to wait for an update of
> > its database. It is as simple as downloading from the parts tracker, and then
> > importing into LeoCAD itself.
In lugnet.cad, Ross Crawford wrote:
> Yes that is correct, but importing the files is not using them directly, as most
> other LDraw programs do. And for folks that have multiple parts folders, that
> can make a big difference.
I wanted to make sure people weren't turned away from LeoCAD because they might
think they'd be dependent on third parties to provide a parts library, that's
just not true, so people SHOULD check it out. It's certainly my LCAD tool of
choice (Philo's too, and he's arguably our most prolific parts author at this
point).
This brings up another point that hasn't entirely been part of the discussion:
the concept of self-helped individuals versus end users. A lot of people early
on (by necessity) were quite willing to climb the mountain to get LDRAW set up.
They don't mind a little tinkering and manual labor to get things into place,
and to tweak and tinker along the way to keep things updated.
The project has since moved into a new phase where there are plenty of end users
of the products. They don't like or want (and shouldn't need) to worry about
the nuts and bolts, they just want to use cool software.
When you get to that point, you "lock in" a certain set of requirements, and
those requirements dictate rigor and attention, in order to provide consistency
and clarity.
Long gone are the days that an author can "play" with a part, changing the
origin or default posing on a whim. There are a host of issues that go along
with that. So a lot of the growth of "committees" and voting and the cost of
entry are due to those factors as well. The library has a host of annoying
errors (such as pairs of parts that have the wrong part numbers, but have to
stay that way for backward compatibility) that are really locked in, because of
that issue. In a way, the project is a bit of a victim of its own success.
It's because of all those issues that part authors and reviewers are much more
careful to "get it right" the first time, so we don't get stuck with designs or
situations that are lacking.
The whole "rewrite every header by hand" job that Chris had to do certainly
didn't help the situation, of course. It really HAD to happen, though.
-- joshuaD
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: The future of LDraw?
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| (...) That's a really good explanation of why the 'rules and regulations' have grown alongside the part library and software. Tim (14 years ago, 21-Mar-10, to lugnet.cad)
| | | Re: The future of LDraw?
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| (...) How widespread a problem is that, though? I know that some parts do indeed have two numbers, but this would seem a glitch that should have been resolved eight or more years ago, no? I mean, when you can turn a brick over and say "Yep, it's a (...) (14 years ago, 22-Mar-10, to lugnet.cad)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The future of LDraw?
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| (...) Yes that is correct, but importing the files is not using them directly, as most other LDraw programs do. And for folks that have multiple parts folders, that can make a big difference. ROSCO (14 years ago, 21-Mar-10, to lugnet.cad)
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