Yes -- despite my comment, I am in the same boat. Code-CAD is actually a backup/toolbox item alongside FreeCAD, for me.
(The programmer in me would love to be able to leave comments in more places on FreeCAD designs. I have spent a lot of time trying to learn how to make the simplest, most self-documenting parametric flow.)
But the reason I framed my comment above in terms of spending at least some time with CadQuery or Build123D etc. over OpenSCAD, is that CadQuery taught me additional CAD concepts that helped me make progress.
I had tried to use FreeCAD before, about 18 months before I finally got my 3D printer, but I was absolutely bamboozled. So when I finally started with my 3D printer, I started with OpenSCAD. I got small stuff done and held it in my hands, but I immediately felt its limitations (partly because I struggle with co-ordinate spaces and maths). Was I really going to be stuck doing all the maths, over and over again, or using libraries of specific functions like BOSL? My maths skills are weaker than I'd like, and it felt like a dead-end.
I stumbled on CadQuery, spent some time working on some key things in it, really immersed myself in the documentation, and this helped me grasp the bRep fundamental ideas of faces, vertexes and edges, normals, orientations, planes, etc. All the higher-order concepts in modern CAD above CSG.
I then had two things I knew could work for me -- CadQuery or in a pinch OpenSCAD. And because as you know there are/were workbenches for both, the knowledge gave me the confidence to spend time with FreeCAD.
Without stumbling on CadQuery I would have been stuck with OpenSCAD and it may have driven me away from trying to make my own things.
There are elements of my designs I will be (re-)building in Build123D to get some code-CAD advantages (scripted customisation). But it's the time with CadQuery that helped me make the transition to CAD thinking.
(The programmer in me would love to be able to leave comments in more places on FreeCAD designs. I have spent a lot of time trying to learn how to make the simplest, most self-documenting parametric flow.)
But the reason I framed my comment above in terms of spending at least some time with CadQuery or Build123D etc. over OpenSCAD, is that CadQuery taught me additional CAD concepts that helped me make progress.
I had tried to use FreeCAD before, about 18 months before I finally got my 3D printer, but I was absolutely bamboozled. So when I finally started with my 3D printer, I started with OpenSCAD. I got small stuff done and held it in my hands, but I immediately felt its limitations (partly because I struggle with co-ordinate spaces and maths). Was I really going to be stuck doing all the maths, over and over again, or using libraries of specific functions like BOSL? My maths skills are weaker than I'd like, and it felt like a dead-end.
I stumbled on CadQuery, spent some time working on some key things in it, really immersed myself in the documentation, and this helped me grasp the bRep fundamental ideas of faces, vertexes and edges, normals, orientations, planes, etc. All the higher-order concepts in modern CAD above CSG.
I then had two things I knew could work for me -- CadQuery or in a pinch OpenSCAD. And because as you know there are/were workbenches for both, the knowledge gave me the confidence to spend time with FreeCAD.
Without stumbling on CadQuery I would have been stuck with OpenSCAD and it may have driven me away from trying to make my own things.
There are elements of my designs I will be (re-)building in Build123D to get some code-CAD advantages (scripted customisation). But it's the time with CadQuery that helped me make the transition to CAD thinking.