Proposal: GUI-first, text-based mechanical CAD inspired by software engineering
Most mechanical CAD tools (SolidWorks, Fusion, FreeCAD) still lock all modeling into opaque binary files. That makes it hard to track changes, collaborate with Git, or automate builds. I’ve written a proposal for an alternative paradigm: - GUI-first, like KiCad - visual modeling is the default - Text-based source files (YAML/JSON) — readable, diffable, Git-friendly - Separation of source and result - .step, .stl and previews are built artifacts - Parametric logic is explicit - slot width =