If you want to do code-CAD for anything substantial and you haven't yet developed a significant dependency on OpenSCAD, do your brain a favour and spend at least
some time with CadQuery, Build123D or (if you prefer JS to Python) Replicad.
As impressive as NopSCADlib and BOSL2 are (and OMG they are, when you consider what they have to work with!), OpenSCAD is a one-way, declarative CSG environment that essentially only outputs mesh formats. It's really not that much better than working with three-dimensional pixels. You won't really be able to analyse, iterate over or measure your models, easily build on faces, do easy chamfers or fillets, export STEP files, make use of constraint-based designs, model assemblies, or so many other things that "CAD" means in the 21st century. All the tools that help you do this on OpenSCAD are layers and layers of task-specific hacks and clever bodges.
I totally get wanting to make models with version-controlled text files instead of GUI CAD (which can be a sort of weird battle to learn for a programmer), and I get wanting to avoid FreeCAD. I just don't really get wanting to limit oneself to such a limited concept of a 3D "model"!
The three alternative systems I mention are all based around bindings to (or in Replicad's case, cross-compilation of) OpenCASCADE, which is a bRep CAD kernel capable of much richer interactions. It is not without its faults, but arguably code-CAD spares you from some of the inscrutability that trips up FreeCAD's interactive model.
As impressive as NopSCADlib and BOSL2 are (and OMG they are, when you consider what they have to work with!), OpenSCAD is a one-way, declarative CSG environment that essentially only outputs mesh formats. It's really not that much better than working with three-dimensional pixels. You won't really be able to analyse, iterate over or measure your models, easily build on faces, do easy chamfers or fillets, export STEP files, make use of constraint-based designs, model assemblies, or so many other things that "CAD" means in the 21st century. All the tools that help you do this on OpenSCAD are layers and layers of task-specific hacks and clever bodges.
I totally get wanting to make models with version-controlled text files instead of GUI CAD (which can be a sort of weird battle to learn for a programmer), and I get wanting to avoid FreeCAD. I just don't really get wanting to limit oneself to such a limited concept of a 3D "model"!
The three alternative systems I mention are all based around bindings to (or in Replicad's case, cross-compilation of) OpenCASCADE, which is a bRep CAD kernel capable of much richer interactions. It is not without its faults, but arguably code-CAD spares you from some of the inscrutability that trips up FreeCAD's interactive model.