We all know the struggle of beloved services slowly going downhill. What’s one service, tool, or website you’ve been using for years that’s still great and hasn’t turned to crap?
We all know the struggle of beloved services slowly going downhill. What’s one service, tool, or website you’ve been using for years that’s still great and hasn’t turned to crap?
My regular open source tools:
I do like Inkscape a lot, but GIMP simply isn’t a viable alternative for photoshop for most users. The interface is horrid and the capabilities are limited. Adobe knew what they were doing with their strategic buyouts of developers.
There are definitely some things PS can do that GIMP can’t, but I’d argue it’s fine for anyone who isn’t coming from Photoshop expecting all those features. I’ve only ever used GIMP, so it seems great to me.
I love OpenSCAD and also realize it is a super backward way to make 3D models, according to most other people. I don’t bother even mentioning OpenScad as an option for most people, I know it is only for certain people.
I tried my hand at modeling and designing using more traditional CAD programs that work more visually. I have good spatial reasoning and visualization abilities but I could never get the breakthrough to a point where I felt literate in those tools.
Constructive Solid Geometry approaches just work for my brain. Now when I need a part designed, I can quickly sketch it out in rough code and I feel confident seeing myself as a ‘designer’ now. Other more ‘visual’ tools waste my time as I get sucked into finger painting instead of working out the fundamentals of the design.
With the code-first framework, I have to really think about what the part needs to do before I tweak the code.
I’ve worked with 2D CAD programs like Autocad for years, I enjoy working with them. Once I tried 3D modeling, I found the experience frustrating–half of my time was spent typing in parameters anyways. I’m sure with enough practice I could get familiar with it, but modeling 3D shapes with a 2D tool just seems like a losing battle.
There are times when the sculpting ability would be nice, but it doesn’t come up that often for me. When I need more complex shapes, I’ll use Inkscape to make a 2D profile and import it into OpenSCAD. So far it’s been working well for me.