Re: SPICE to gnucap transition

On Sunday 18 March 2007 23:22, Dan McMahill wrote:

> Whats somewhat amazing to me is I think in a summer one might
> even be able to approach or exceed some commercial tools.  It
> has amazed me how truely bad some of the commercial offerings
> are. 

Commercial tools put lots of effort into incremental 
improvements.  Sometimes the best way is to throw away the old 
and start over.

That is why I decided that for gnucap, I would concentrate on 
where I want it to be, and go there, even if it means temporary 
setbacks.

If gnucap tries to be Spice, and puts a priority on Spice 
compatibility, it will always be inferior.  I don't need to 
compromise the future for this quarter's financial report.  
Therefore, gnucap will not try to be spice.

About a year ago, I made the decision not to put effort into 
what I consider to be "detour" code.  You know ...  a "detour" 
is something you build to keep traffic moving while you work on 
the real one.  Before that, it seemed I was only able to work 
on the detour.

> If it is design with extensibility in mind, you can grow the
> built in functionality simply.

Yes.

.. and if it isn't designed with extensibility in mind, don't 
waste your time extending it.  Redesign for extensibility 
first.  Accept the temporary loss.

Once this is done, gnucap will be able to replace spice.  Not 
before.