Now is there a list where we can hear more news about the open source
version of Gnu Electric ?
Sadly, no. I am part of a team of 4 or 5 developers who have been working
since September to recode Electric in Java. In the interest of getting
something out, we cannot translate everything, so our release (due in just
a month) will limit itself to essential functions. But what are "essential
functions"? The development team is part of a larger group at Sun
Microsystems that is using Electric to design chips. So our definition of
"essential" is whatever the group needs to design ICs. After the release,
we will surely hear from everyone else who will tell us what other
functions they consider "essential", and these will likely get added.
The recoding has also offered us the opportunity to rethink issues that
have been plauging Electric for decades. The new version addresses issues
such as the term "Facet" (which will henceforth be known by its more
standard name: "Cell"); the notion of lambda scaling (which will not
permeate the database as before); the notion of center-vs-corner based
placement; and much more.
We have tried to maintain backwards compatibility of "elib" data files
between Java Electric and C Electric. However, as an intermediate step in
the transition, we recommend that those who still need the functionality of
the C version upgrade from the current C version (6.08) to a newer
"transitional" C version (7.00). Version 7.00 will be better able to
preserve the information in the Java release (6.08 will still be able to
read the Java version datafiles, but some information may get
mangled). The first Java release will be version 8.00.
-Steven Rubin
