On Oct 6, 2006, at 12:50 PM, Steve Baldwin wrote:

>> If price is not an issue, go for Mentor Graphics (Board
>> Station/Exepition/PADS) or Cadence.
>
> I don't agree with this approach. You need to decide what it is
> that you want to do and choose the appropriate tool.

That might work if you're already quite knowledgeable about PCB
design/etc.  If you have less experience, you might want to work
backward: "this PRO package has this feature emphasized, Now why
would I want to use it?"  My experience with SW in general is that
high-end tools tend to include a lot of "features" that enable it
to work better in  large, professional environments (version control,
file locking, licensing niceties, direct interfaces to business tools,
simulation, support of particular vendor requirements, support of
documentation requirements, SW administration hooks, etc.)  In
general, a lot of these features do little to make the average engineer
any happier about using the package (and sometimes quite the opposite),
but they are nevertheless "important" to some degree in a professional
environment.

BillW
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