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April 2014 • The PCB Design Magazine 29 EDA MyTHBuSTERS: TIME FOR A NEW ERA continues Myth 4: "I just want it to work." Uh-huh. Sure you do. One segment of my life working on the Mo- zaix project was the "Get it to Work" phase. This was Mozaix 1.0. It was awful! I spent about three years just getting the thing to work. By Mozaix 2.2, it was stable and customers were coming aboard. But I cannot tell you how many phone calls I took from people telling me that the way the program worked was stupid, ugly, frustrating, and plenty of other expletives that you can imagine. No, EDA engineers don't just want their software to work. They want it to be easy. They want it to be pretty. They want it to make your coffee for you and rub your shoulders while it produces your design quickly. Engineers tend to have that functional way of looking at things— if it works, the world is happy. But it's not that simple. It's HOW it works that is everything. This rule permeates far beyond software, but for many engineers, the notion still eludes them. So, after my years of being ver- bally pummeled on the sup- port lines, I was moved into a product manager position and tasked with making the program work nicely. It was a lot of fun to come full cir- cle; I started with a manager who wanted to spit on my re- quests to "Make it pretty," as he would leeringly say to me. I ended up being the one in charge of doing just that. So with Mozaix 3.0, I had the pleasure of working with a great team of young engi- neers, and we proceeded to revamp, redesign, upgrade, and "pretty up" a program that worked, in addition to working the way you wanted it to word. Since that time, support traffic has dropped to an all-time low. So don't tell me you just want it to work—next time, tell me how you want it to work. It takes collaboration, fresh ideas, and just a little extra involvement from a user to really hit the solu- tion out of the park. I'm listening. Myth 5: Atlanta is Full of Rednecks Since much of our industry is concentrat- ed on the West Coast, I'd like to set this one straight. The largest city in the South is not full of rednecks. I am one of the few Atlantans who actually grew up here; most Atlantans are transplants who moved here from other parts of the country, usually to take advantage of the warmer weather. I do not have a "Suthun" accent. No one I know chews tobacco. One thing you may find interesting is that Atlanta has more oversized SUVs than humans. What's even more interesting is that half of these SUVs are blinged up, and the other half are driven by moms. I'm more scared of the moms. The blingy guys are fine by me. Quite a few live in my neighborhood, and these folks come in all colors and creeds. In Atlanta, I think every color and creed is a minority. There is no majority of anything—it's one big melting pot. Atlanta is the essence of America. Myth 6: PCB Design Tools are All the Same I've seen comments like this on LinkedIn discus- sions over the years. I've also seen die-hard followers who would never consider using a different tool from their fa- vorite. Everyone has a differ- ent opinion, but one thread that seems to hum regularly is people asking what makes some software packages bet- ter than others. It is true that they can all do the job of lay- ing out a schematic and de- signing a board. But we all know that the term "board" is an overly broad statement. In order to assess the PCB tool that is right for you, you have to review your entire design process, decide if there are parts of it that need to change, look at the size and com- plexity of what you're doing, review all of the software packages available to you, and then repeat. Far too often, high-level management thinks it can slash the software budget because No, EDA engineers don't just want their software to work. They want it to be easy. They want it to be pretty. They want it to make your coffee for you and rub your shoulders while it produces your design quickly. Engineers tend to have that functional way of looking at things—if it works, the world is happy. But it's not that simple. " " software bytes