[Oberon] LolaCreator: a Lola-2 IDE based on Qt Creator

[Paul Reed]

> I would not recommend to sidestep the synthesis tool. The question
> would then be: who would do the logic minimizations/optimizations and
> the technology mapping? These things would then have to be implemented
> in the Lola compiler.

Sure but it depends what you want to do - I'm in favour of a much more 
predictable and understandable, reliable tool and not too bothered about 
nth-degree fancy optimisations, which in a sense are less relevant the 
bigger FPGAs get.  Also mapping is not too difficult in the FPGAs 
targeted by the open-source tools.

The insanity of a small change to design source causing a large 
unpredictable change to the output was wrestled to the ground in 
software some time ago, and now you have a choice; but the hardware 
tools have yet to mature in this area.

However, I know I'm in the minority in wanting simple, predictable tools 
:)
Paul