OpenSCAD is amazing for those who know nothing about 3D but know about programming.

I bought a 3D printer (which is basically simpler and more reliable than a 2D inkjet printer by now: it's send the file, put the filament, and 3D print and it just works) recently and already fixed shitload of stuff around the house with 3D printed parts.

I even did "print in place" pieces where you add a pause a a certain layer, insert "stuff" (like say a 3D metal angle) into your print, then finish your print. Effectively creating parts that are both plastic and metal.

Now the language itself in OpenSCAD is kinda really bad: you can define variables inside of other functions and then use them everywhere. You can redefine already defined variables and you'll get zero warning. The language itself is really pretty WTF.

But you get modelling for free as a programmer. And LLMs are okay'ish at it for simple stuff.

I'd recommend people to use the BOSL2 library for OpenSCAD:

https://github.com/BelfrySCAD/BOSL2/wiki

It's really not hard.

If you love programming and like to DIY stuff around the house, buying a 3D printer and learning some OpenSCAD is a no-brainer.

OpenSCAD ain't the only option: many people like Fusion (for example). But as I'm a dev, OpenSCAD just feels natural to me.

For these eternal Fillet-Whiners: Antigravity made simple Blender-tool that rounds all edges in STL-file. Sharp edges never look good in print and avoiding them feels often like too much extra work.

https://github.com/timonoko/OpenSCAD-rounding-in-Blender

The nightly builds for this are so much better. When are they going to merge the nightlies into a new mainline release? The last one showing 2021 isn't the best look...

I barely know openscad (used Fusion 360 before autodesk enshitified it) but gemini is very good at creating code I can paste into openscad.

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