Re: Disgraceful!

On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:25:09 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 15:34:26 -0800, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
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On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 18:25:36 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:
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On Mon, 27 Jan 2025 13:38:21 -0800, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
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On Sun, 26 Jan 2025 18:17:44 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:
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On Sun, 26 Jan 2025 09:56:43 -0800, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
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On Sun, 26 Jan 2025 11:29:00 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:
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Gentlemen,
>
I never ceases to amaze me that for all I've learned about the theory
side of electronics over the years, my construction skills have not
improved one iota since I was about 10 years old. Case in point:
>
https://disk.yandex.com/i/zGA2slnrNWqGjQ
>
I cobbled this board up to automatically turn on the water supply when
the soil moisture fell below a certain amount. I've got 240V/10A wires
juxtaposed next to low voltage signal interconnects and components
with the insulation smeared through by careless use of a soldering
iron all secured with blobs of hot melt glue and many of the component
lead ends close to shorting out. It's obvious I've paid scant regard
to layout considerations as you can tell. I'm posting this so John
Larkin can see for himself that having the ability to visualize 3-D
apples with insects etc is of no help whatsoever in laying out boards.

>
Works for me.
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https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kmjfxcvsix8fwmcyy6map/T840_E1.jpg?rlkey=tbvmyna46bkfxc3lc6a6yv64q&raw=1

>
Sorry - what exactly works for you?

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Visualizing the schematic and the layout and making both as beautiful
as possible. Beautiful things work better.

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I might as well give up and start collecting stamps instead, then.
>

Are you saying you can visualize
*and* layout a board?

>
Certainly. PCB layout is fun, like a 3D color chess game. But it's so
labor intensive that I delegate most layouts. I do a few critical
ones, like picosecond stuff, because it's harder to explain to someone
else than it is to just do it.

>
OK, I got the impression from a previous question you posted that YOU
were unable to visualise and wanted to know if anyone on the group who
COULD was also good at laying out boards. I can and I'm not!

>
I see mechanical things in my head, and schematics with waveforms and
current flowing around. But some people, including programmers, don't
visualize objects. People are very different.
>
I don't write a lot of software, but if I do I draw a diagram to plan
it. State machines with lots of GOTO's.

>
You state that like it's a virtue!

Knowing the state of a machine is a virtue. When you have fun using a
fancy OS, millions of lines of code that you didn't write, and a maze
of fifo's and sockets and mutexes and multitasked stuff, you don't
know the system state.

Dijkstra, the classic enemy of goto, "did not have regular access to a
computer."