That was a poor design decision from the standpoint of teaching newbies to electronics, because it has led to the proliferation of these wiring diagrams, and to newbies not understanding the importance of a schematic.

Ultimately - I personally think it is a tool that we as a community should get behind, at least to ease beginners into understanding the whole schematic/breadboard/PCB process if there were anything that I would call a problem with Fritzing - I would have to say it's the fact that they put 'breadboard wiring diagram' view first - and not the schematic diagram view. That said, IIRC, you can dump out standard file formats which most PCB houses will take (whether they will validate easily or not, though - I am not certain). While Fritzing makes it easy to get your PCBs created, they do it thru their own service - which, last I checked, is nowhere near the least expensive option. It's a tool which can be expanded and improved upon by the users. If you need a new part, you can build it easily (to a point) - it's just XML and some image files. Granted, this process (nets and routing) isn't perfect - things will not just magically work all the time - but I've yet to see a schematic editor or PCB layout editor that did work perfectly all the time (I imagine something out there exists that comes really close - if you are willing to mortgage your house for it - IOW, those tools aren't meant for hobbyists).īut there's the other thing about Fritzing - if it isn't working properly, it's open source, so it can be fixed, if you have the skills or inclination (just like the Arduino IDE - in theory). What I find really nice about it (what little I've played with it), is that when you make a change in one view (say you move a trace in the PCB view) - it updates the other views as well. Furthermore, it's fully open-source, and new parts to expand the library can be created fairly easily (many can be made just by copying and pasting an existing part, and updating an image file to two - others will require some knowledge of a vector drawing program, like Inkscape).

It gives beginners a tool to allow them to learn how the relationship between a breadboarded circuit, its schematic, and its PCB layout all relate to each other. No, it isn't Eagle, or KiCad, or gEDA (to name just a few) - but it's concept is, IMHO, a great idea.

I've never understood the dislike of Fritzing among people here.

Fritzing arduino simulator online