Mitch: By all means, learn perl. It is a good language and is almost universal in the systems world. I have done a LOT of scripting with perl in the Allegro environment, but I am finding that I prefer to use SKILL, even with the steep learning curve, weak pattern matching, and the Cadence documentation. It's speed, lack of maintenance issues, and lack of OS related issues are well worth it to me. The problem with perl in the Allegro environment is thet there are no documented methods (that I have access to, anyways :)for a perl program to directly access the Allegro database. You can do all sorts of things with "extracta" and can create scripts that read back into Allegro, but they tend to be slow and tend to have things break as Cadence changes extracta with almost every release, and changes scripting commands with about every major release. I have done that in the past and spent as much time fixing scripts on new releases as I did originally writing the programs. Skill, on the other hand, does not usually lose commands, it gains them. This means things you write in one version will work until the database feature you are using changes. This means you usually spend less time maintaining code you have already written. I would think there are ways to use IPC (interprocess communications, not the Designers Council) to communicate between perl and Allegro, but I think you will still have to write a skill driver to make it work. A programmer is a programmer, the language used should be a matter of picking the best way to do the job at hand. Enjoy perl, but keep an open mind :) -- George Patrick Tektronix, Inc. Central Engineering, PCB Design Group P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-512 Beaverton, OR 97077-0001 Phone: 503-627-5272 Fax: 503-627-5587 http://www.tektronix.com http://www.pcb-designer.com It's my opinion, not Tektronix' -----Original Message----- From: Mitch S. Morey [mailto:cadpro2k@xxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 14:07 To: icu-pcb-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [PCB_FORUM] Re: ICU2004: SKILL SIG, OpenSKILL Initiative That's true Carl. But, get a programmer that know Perl and Tcl/TK and they do wonderful things with Allegro. I've seen it at a few companies. Trick is to have that type of access to a programmer. I haven't boned-up on Perl or SKILL yet, but I can find many more 'programmers' than SKILL developers in companies, so I'd more prefer to learn Perl. That's only MY opinion. Now, if you'd only put a few more comment lines in your Perl code, I wouldn't have to ask you what it does, or worse yet... guess. :) (I've still got a whole purse full of Perl and Tcl/TK scripts from a past company, but I haven't linked them back to workability yet.) Good day. > As far as I can see correct me if I am wrong but the perl5 in the tools > directory is just perl installation the same you can get for free at > perl.com It has no inherent call built in for the allegro data base. you > can interact with the database by calling the allegro executable and > running a script that you built on the fly with perl kind of like perl > script I have enclosed. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mike Shannon [mailto:mshannon@xxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 2:38 PM > To: icu-pcb-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: [PCB_FORUM] Re: ICU2004: SKILL SIG, OpenSKILL Initiative > > > Can database access be run "inside" and "outside" of allegro? > Can you access library parts also? > ----------------------------------------- Stay ahead of the information curve. Receive PCB news and jobs on your desktop daily. Subscribe today to the PCB CafeNews newsletter. [ http://www10.pcbcafe.com/nl/newsletter_subscribe.php ] It's informative and essential. ----------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe/unsubscribe: Send a message to icu-pcb-forum-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with a subject of subscribe or unsubscribe To view the archives of this list please login at http://www.freelists.org. Our list name is icu-pcb-forum or go to http://www.freelists.org/archives/icu-pcb-forum/ Problems or Questions: Send an email to icu-pcb-forum-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Want to post a job listing ? DON'T DO IT HERE! Better yet, join our jobs listing forum. SUBSCRIBE: icu-jobs-forum-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxx POST: icu-jobs-forum@xxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe/unsubscribe: Send a message to icu-pcb-forum-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with a subject of subscribe or unsubscribe To view the archives of this list please login at http://www.freelists.org. Our list name is icu-pcb-forum or go to http://www.freelists.org/archives/icu-pcb-forum/ Problems or Questions: Send an email to icu-pcb-forum-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Want to post a job listing ? DON'T DO IT HERE! Better yet, join our jobs listing forum. SUBSCRIBE: icu-jobs-forum-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxx POST: icu-jobs-forum@xxxxxxxxxx -----------------------------------------------------------