First, I have a question: what degree is your son working on? I have a BSEE degree from a top state university, and I never did any PCB design while in school. This is generally not covered in BS-level undergrad classes, and probably not in grad-level classes either. It's considered something you pick up on the job, if you need it.
The whole idea of learning one particular software package in preparation for a job in industry is ridiculous, IMO. If you shell out $25,000 for Orcad or PADS or whatever (!), what happens when you apply to a company that uses something different but similarly costly? You just wasted $25k! You could have downloaded Kicad (or even EAGLE) for free and had the same background: familiarity with a different PCB design package that will allow you to come up to speed more quickly than someone who's never designed a PCB before. Or were you planning on selling your house and purchasing seats for all the major PCB programs so your son can have a slight advantage in getting an entry-level job paying $50k? I don't mean to insult you, but I have these dollar figures are giving you a bit of sticker shock, because they should. This isn't like buying a copy of MS Office (which is still expensive, but not compared to EDA software) instead of downloading OpenOffice.org for free. EDA software of any kind is usually extremely expensive, if you're a private individual on a budget. It's priced for companies who can afford to spend tens of thousands on a single software package, because that's a lot cheaper than having a team of $200k/year engineers (including salary, benefits, etc.) waste their valuable time with software that doesn't work as well. If you're just some guy at home with an electronics hobby, the idea of purchasing anything more "industry standard" than EAGLE (which is not an industry standard compared to the high-dollar packages) is just insanity unless you have more money than you know what to do with. On top of all that, companies have a penchant for wasting money on software when there's free software available that works better. Look how many companies still use Windows for tasks that would be much better suited to Linux. (Not all do; take a trip to your local Lowe's sometime, and notice that all their terminals actually use a modified KDE.) Most big companies have managers who think you get more if you pay more, or you need some big company standing behind a product in case something goes wrong; these companies don't understand open-source/Free software at all. But times are changing. As someone else said, those high-dollar PCB packages feature rather clunky interfaces designed 30 years ago it seems. I wouldn't be surprised to see Kicad match and exceed many of these packages in 3-5 years, and for some of them to fall by the wayside. It's not as fast as with other Free software, where there's a larger userbase (like office software and operating systems), but there's still a decent amount of users here, and a decent amount of people who can help with software development. In addition, lots of people make their own parts libraries and contribute these back, which takes a lot of work out of designing a PCB. Personally, I'd like to see Kicad include more of these in the default distribution rather than having to get them separately. Dan --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, "rtnmi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Can someone tell me how Kicad compares to commercial software for the > same purpose of Electronic Design. > > My son is working toward his degree and I wanted him to use Kicad if it > will help him with software that is industry standard. > > I am using it for my hobby of Ham Radio.
