High-Level Statements and Decisions

Aim

Build my own circuit simulator.


Facts

I have very little knowledge of computerized circuit analysis and I am relatively new to programming.


Programming Language

C#.NET
The GUI will be built using Microsoft's new presentation framework: WPF.


Technical Resources

• For circuit analysis algorithms
  
  
  
  1. Electronic Circuit & System Simulation Methods
     by T.L. Pillage, R.A. Rohrer, and C. Visweswariah
  
  
  2. Computer Methods for Circuit Analysis an Design
     by Jiri Vlach and Kishore Singhal
  
  


• Programming resources
  
  
  1. Visual C# 2005 How to Program
     by H. M. Deitel and P. J. Deitel
  
  
  2. Programming WPF, 2nd edition
     by Chris Sells and Ian Griffiths
  
  
  3. Microsoft's official documentation of the C# programming language and the .Net framework.

Tools

• I will use Visual C# 2008 Express (SP1) to build my first simulator. I might get the professional edition of Visual Studio from Microsoft DreamSpark, if I do, the professional edition will be used to build my next simulators.
  
  
• SwitcherCAD III and the student version of CircuitMaker are free circuit simulators that I will use to test the accuracy and precision of the output of my programs.
  

General Strategy

I will not wait until I master the subject to begin coding, an early working simulator will boost my self confidence. I have no problem writing throw-away programs just to gain experience.
For the first releases I will not focus on the algorithmic efficiency as much as I will focus on functionality, also the first releases will probably not have a GUI.