On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:18:09 -0000, Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

I am a bit wary of AutoCAD. I remember back in the 1980's that its
popularity seemed to have more to do with its accessibility on a PC
than its stellar modeling capabilties.

Yes, AutoCAD's huge success was based simply on the fact that it could run
on a PC instead of a mini or a workstation. Because it was the first, it
became an entrenched standard.

It was designed by software programmers and not engineers so the interface
was never very intuitive. It began it's life as a 2-D drafting platform
and evolved into 3-D, so the early drawbacks of the system were just buried
in the core architecture of the software.

I can't comment on current CAD systems as it's been many years since my
involvement, but in the old days AutoCAD was considered quite mediocre
compared to newer systems.


--
Dallas