gschem: be less verbose on start-up

[KaiMartin]

On start-up gschem emits half a screen full of messages in the log window. Most of it contains no information to the user if everything is fine. There is:

* The version string.
--> This is fine, because it provides an easy way to report the version in bug reports.

* A header in legaleze ("ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY").
--> I doubt, that this is a legal necessity. Did not see this kind of message in any other open source application.

* Many messages about the configs read and parsed.

* Searching foobar.sch
* Found foobar.sch
 --> This is really like a debugging printf. When told to open a specific file, it should do so silently and only warn if it could not open the file for some reason.

Suggestion:
Limit the output on start-up to the version string by default. Only print the rest of the messages if the option --verbose is given.

---<)kaimartin(>---

[Gareth Edwards (gareth-uk)]

The logging doesn't look excessive to me.

[Steven Michalske (hardkrash)]

As a software developer I'd agree but as a user I don't. Users should not be taught to ignore console output. And the output is on the verge of teaching users to ignore output.

If you look at logging levels as

Critical
Warning
Info
Debug

The user settings should be between warning and info. Depending on the user.

The above commentary is for messages not progress output.

Steve

On Jan 2, 2012, at 8:30 AM, Gareth Edwards <email address hidden> wrote:

> The logging doesn't look excessive to me.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of gEDA Bug
> Team, which is subscribed to gEDA.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/710599
>
> Title:
> gschem: be less verbose on start-up
>
> Status in GPL Electronic Design Automation tools:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> On start-up gschem emits half a screen full of messages in the log
> window. Most of it contains no information to the user if everything
> is fine. There is:
>
> * The version string.
> --> This is fine, because it provides an easy way to report the version in bug reports.
>
> * A header in legaleze ("ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY").
> --> I doubt, that this is a legal necessity. Did not see this kind of message in any other open source application.
>
> * Many messages about the configs read and parsed.
>
> * Searching foobar.sch
> * Found foobar.sch
> --> This is really like a debugging printf. When told to open a specific file, it should do so silently and only warn if it could not open the file for some reason.
>
> Suggestion:
> Limit the output on start-up to the version string by default. Only print the rest of the messages if the option --verbose is given.
>
> ---<)kaimartin(>---
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/geda/+bug/710599/+subscriptions
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> geda-bug mailing list
> <email address hidden>
> http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-bug

[Vladimir Zhbanov (vzhbanov)]

I disagree the messages are useless. If all is fine, well, they don't break anything. If not, you at least see the stage where something went wrong.

[KaiMartin (kmk-familieknaak)]

For the record, I do not propose to remove the status messages. I'd just like to not show them by default. That is, only show them if --verbose is in place.

The status messages do break something if all is fine: They break the confidence of (very) new users. I have had more than one user confuse them for errors on their first runs. I have also seen users falsely interpret genuine warnings to be harmless status messages.

The legalese ("... NO WARRANTY ...") does not provide any insight as to what stage something went wrong. It just adds to the chatter. Users learn by experience to "ignore messages in the log".

At work I teach geda to people who need to do a little electronics project here and there. The mixture of messages ranging from totally harmless, to informational, to smoking gun of a misconfiguration makes it hard for me to teach simple rules like: "Make sure gschem does not send errors or warnings in the log window."

---<)kaimartin(>---

[Vladimir Zhbanov (vzhbanov)]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 06:03:20PM -0000, KaiMartin wrote:
> For the record, I do not propose to remove the status messages. I'd just
> like to not show them by default. That is, only show them if --verbose
> is in place.
>
> The status messages do break something if all is fine: They break the
> confidence of (very) new users. I have had more than one user confuse
> them for errors on their first runs. I have also seen users falsely
> interpret genuine warnings to be harmless status messages.
>
> The legalese ("... NO WARRANTY ...") does not provide any insight as to
> what stage something went wrong. It just adds to the chatter. Users
> learn by experience to "ignore messages in the log".
>
> At work I teach geda to people who need to do a little electronics
> project here and there. The mixture of messages ranging from totally
> harmless, to informational, to smoking gun of a misconfiguration makes
> it hard for me to teach simple rules like: "Make sure gschem does not
> send errors or warnings in the log window."
>
> ---<)kaimartin(>---
>

So, IIUC, the only part you object to is the legalese?
I cannot agree that info on which files were loaded and which
schematics were opened is useless. Errors may happen during
loading either a config file, or a schematic/symbol file.

--
  Vladimir