Direct manipulation/GUI will always be faster at producing content. It worth exploring how much the two can we wedded with code synthesis. I get that code synthesis attempts normally produce poor quality code, but maybe a hybrid work flow could work between using the GUI and fixing up code.
It's a shame that the current CodeCAD tools have very little interaction with he part viewer.
I'm really bullish on software driven CAD, myself and other CadHub volunteers talk regularly about a future in which Mechanical Engineering and design is very similar to software engineering.
I'll be the first person it admit that some of the current CodeCAD tools aren't production ready, OpenSCAD for example I can't imagine being used by mechanical engineers. So the idea is mostly about unifying the community with a website dedicated to this paradigm, and if we're lucky we play a small role in promoting more development and better tools in the future.
Some of the reasons it's got potential:
- 3d-diffs on pull requests [1]
- Automated FEM, CFD etc simulations akin to CI/CD [2]
- PLM managed through git
- plus git in general is such a good way for teams to work together
For what its worth I've been very impressed and happy with what I've been able to achieve with R3F [1]
Its an online IDE for a number of CodeCAD packages to help lower the barrier to this paradigm.[2]
Going from knowing nothing about 3d, just hacking up example code it's been easy to put something respectable together without much dedicated learning. Im super grateful to the pmndrs team
https://cadhub.xyz/