Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
From: doug-merritt@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal (IFF QuickDraw)
Message-ID: <5395@cup.portal.com>
Date: 13 May 88 17:00:55 GMT
References: <4607@super.upenn.edu> <4054@killer.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 32
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.4407

Eric Green writes:
>Another problem: Data transfer between CAD programs. Unfortunately, I don't
>think it'll happen. A drafting program has little business talking to a PC
>board layout program. [...]
>A QuickDraw-like language might be good for data interchange between
>drafting programs, but I haven't seen much of a hue and cry for it.

Depends on who you talk to, I guess...I've heard a great *deal* of
hue and cry for such a thing. Note for instance, the EDIF standard
(a parser for which was released in a source newsgroup not long ago).
Roger March, the author, says that it's a good partial solution, but
that we still need more such standards, since EDIF is limited in
scope.

And from a purely logical perspective, if you're doing electronic
design, you're going to want *all* of your CAD programs to be able to
talk to each other. And you want them to use a standard so that you
can get each component from different vendors if you want to. Which
conversely is why the vendors would prefer to stick to a proprietary
format if they can get away with it. Which they mostly have, until recently.

Consider IFF on the Amiga. What if your digitizer image file format was
incompatible with your image enhancement program, which was incompatible
with your paint program, etc?

I claim that compatible interchange standards *always* make sense!
Except to vendors trying to practice "lock out".
	Doug
---
      Doug Merritt        ucbvax!sun.com!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
                      or  ucbvax!eris!doug (doug@eris.berkeley.edu)
                      or  ucbvax!unisoft!certes!doug