I found OpenSCAD to be very friendly for parametric designs, but after a while I switched to the SolidPython wrapper as it was more flexible.
However, I'm hunting for a better way to create 3d models via code (Blender Python?) because 'extrude_along_path'->SolidPython->OpenSCAD->stl export simply could not handle my model.
I wouldn't consider OpenSCAD real CAD. It doesn't aid you in design really, it's just a language to represent the design you already have in your head.
Without constraints, you're still doing a lot of stuff directly rather than declaratively, and without a GUI you're mostly limited to geometry you can imagine, because doing anything by trial and error in OpenSCAD takes forever.
The whole thing feels very open loop, like it's meant to be "imagine it>reason about it> code it" rather than "vauge idea > iteration > verify"
I could see it being useful in some cases for high level professional designers though.
OpenSCAD is great in some ways, but the fact that everything gets boils straight to triangles drives me nuts. If there were an OpenSCAD equivalent to work with boundary representation models I’d have found my CAD nirvana.
I honestly think CadQuery has more promise as a way to get open source 3D components and modules to the mainstream, because it's fundamentally code, and can be reasoned about as such (diffed, merged, blamed, parameterised, modularised, reused and tested). Putting SolidWorks or FreeCad file into source control is a very different thing.
Also, as it's natively Python, you have all sorts of library support, up to and including things like numpy.
On the other hand, sketching with constraints is very intuitive. Making interesting shapes that aren't trivial CSG demos by fiddling with code just doesn't sound that great.
The future dream mCAD for me is something where extrusions and fillets and other 3d stuff is code, but sketches are GUI edited.
However, I'm hunting for a better way to create 3d models via code (Blender Python?) because 'extrude_along_path'->SolidPython->OpenSCAD->stl export simply could not handle my model.