The software development process.

Right, unlike the RINOs who just borrow money from the Chinese Communists.

There are some vendors who compete on the basis of technical quality, value for money, and that sort of thing - but they are typically small in the market. If Eagle grows too big, it will probably end up like the big players (either on its own, or bought out by one of them). Perhaps I'm just cynical, but it seems to be the way of things these days. The only way to be sure of your freedom is to make sure all file formats are open and documented, and if possible use open source software. Unfortunately, the open source EDA market is too small and immature at the moment, and will likely remain that way until someone figures out how to make money out of it.

Only if you want no fat, powdered milk, right out of the cow.

We we get more intelligent answers from you if we cut off your food, too?

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

I thought that all the English people were irregular? ;-)

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Is that based on personal experience, or just quoted from Microsoft's "get the facts" campaign? For the huge majority of users - corporate or otherwise - OpenOffice covers all the features of MS Office that are actually used. It can load and save MS format documents and templates perfectly well - you get bigger problems with mixing MS Office versions. The retraining required consists of showing users where to find the new programs on their start menu - even the slowest learner will pick it up in an hour. This is very different from the latest MS Office, which is completely different in appearance from other versions, and will need a lot more training.

There are some offices that make extensive use of macros and COM objects, and they are going to have much bigger issues. But they are a minority - by far the biggest use of VB macros is for viruses. There are certainly some features of MS Office that make it a better choice for some uses, but the same applies to OpenOffice.

At our (fairly small) office, we stopped installing MS Office a couple of years ago - every new installation since then has been OpenOffice, while those with MS Office already installed continue to use it. There have been no real issues at all.

Being XML makes almost no difference whatsoever if the format is not documented properly, and free from any licences, patents, or other restrictions (note - I have no idea whether this is the case here). And VB script may be old (I wouldn't say "good", although I've seen worse), but you are still locked to using AWR's software to handle *your* data files. Protel has had powerful macro and extension languages for years, but their format is still closed.

To avoid competing with the "big folks," one "lives in the cracks," so to speak. You choose a market the big folks cannot afford to attack, because it is too small to be worth serious attention for them and because servicing it out of their existing structures would be complex and expensive for them. But that doesn't mean it cannot feed a small business just fine. But if that business area starts to show its potentials as being worthy of the attention of significantly larger companies, you can expect them either to buy themselves into that market by buying a small company or else coming into the market in full force on their own.

An example of an area hard to get into, without changing the practices of the many businesses involved, is developing software used to manage inventory or work-in-progress for smallish mid-sized businesses like tire warehouses, film processing, and so on. They often have long-used, custom internal part numbers, specialized validations that almost cannot be generalized, and so on. A small software company can specialize in one of these areas and deliver a very good product that serves the needs of a narrow marketplace, where a large company wouldn't be that interested in the first place and where the large company would have a very difficult time coming up with a single product that could be multi-targeted at a wide, disparate customer base that includes (but isn't limited to) the narrow market this hypothetical business is involved in.

Of course, it's also possible that tire warehouses will get together and establish a standard or else decide to change their internal systems so that they can more readily use broad-based commercial products from the large companies, too, and thus walk away from companies specialized in providing customized products for their narrow market.

I don't think you can create and develop a wildy profitable area without getting the attention of bigger companies, though. You can hide for a while, but eventually your visibility will get their attention and interest.

Jon

One "snag" I've seen with "const" and "inline" is that many compilers will still allocate space for these variables and functions that wouldn't have occured with macros. Ie, a const variable gets a memory location even if it's only used in a constant expression, and an inline function generates a real function (sometimes even if the programmer remembers to include "static"). You're left to the mercy of the optimizer. Technically, "inline" is supposed to be just a hint to the optimizer, not a directive; and "const" just means that the value is supposed to be read-only.

I can see the inelegance of C macros though, since they're purely textual substitutions instead of being syntactically integrated macros (ie, compare to the macros in Lisp for example). But const/inline aren't perfect substitutes.

-- Darin Johnson

I think "constipated" is the correct terminology ;-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

In message , dated Wed, 13 Sep 2006, Jonathan Kirwan writes

Not if the profitable area is legal. If it isn't, or just might not be, other big organizations may take an interest.

--
OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk
There are benefits from being irrational - just ask the square root of 2.
John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

Some are more symmetrical than others.

--
OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk
There are benefits from being irrational - just ask the square root of 2.
John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

I was thinking more along the lines of Benny Hill and Monty Python. ;-)

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

But, that doesn't excuse the men, does it?

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

I suspect that there are more ways of writing this than there are people who are capable of writing something like this. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

One strategy is to develop a lot of good niche products, in diverse application areas. Then nobody will want to fight you for half of any one small market. Each product can be, in proportion to company size, very profitable. A good "factory" infrastructure can support this model. A million here, a million there, and soon you're making serious money.

John

And don't put the watchdog reset inside an ISR. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

****THAT'S**** what macros (#defines) are FOR!!! ;-)

#define TIMER1CTRL (*(BYTE*) 0x308) #define TIMER_START (0x20)

and so on.

Cheers! Rich

Youse.

:-)

A C const cannot be used in a constant expression. The compiler will object, unless you are making the mistake of using a C++ compiler.

--
"I have a creative mind.  You (singular) are eccentric.
 He is insane.          We are losing sight of reality.
 You (plural) are smoking crack.  They are certifiable."
Declension of verbs,                  per Lewin Edwards

You can't get a baby in a month by getting nine ladies pregnant.

Cheers! Rich