On the contrary if you're a coder doing anything non-substantial and only rarely need to do some basic 3d modelling I would say definitely look to openscad!
I make models for my 3d printer just a few times a year. I find it much easier to get back into openscad than remember my way around a gui or wrestle with more advanced tools.
There's nothing I've not managed to make with openscad yet, though the things I have made are embarrassingly simple (yet highly functional).
You CAN get things done, but there is no getting around the fundamental problems expressed here.
All my models are about 50% variable declarations and 50% inscrutable equations to express the relationships between the values. Sometimes huge ternary stacks because the language doesn't allow variable changes, so you can't have simple if/else/case to have a simple concept like a default value that maybe gets replaced based on some other condition.
And the lack of things like fillets is simply impossibl. The things you have to do to attain the end result of a fillet without an actual fillet function is ridiculous, and even after doing the ridiculous things, you still have a limited crap result where no matter what you simply can't actually have a fillet wherever you want, but you can compromise and get at least the ones you really need if you're willing to live with a simple design.
That is not a good tool. A good tool gives you the means to express whatever you need to express. Openscad gives you the power to express cubes and spheres and hulls and intersections of those, and even that only in a bafflingly limited way thanks to the language limitations.
It's not a great tool. It's a great proof of concept for a great idea for a great tool.
> There's nothing I've not managed to make with openscad yet, though the things I have made are embarrassingly simple (yet highly functional).
It is workable if you have an extremely solid grasp of mathematics, and you don't mind objects that ultimately retain the feel of the combination of a few CSG primitives.
But I make 3D-printed things that for a variety of reasons are little more than rings, plates, discs, and helixes, and I've already very clearly run into situations where the face/vertex/wire model of a proper CAD package is more or less the only way to keep control over a design.
I make models for my 3d printer just a few times a year. I find it much easier to get back into openscad than remember my way around a gui or wrestle with more advanced tools.
There's nothing I've not managed to make with openscad yet, though the things I have made are embarrassingly simple (yet highly functional).