JSCAD: overview

This document aims to help users and developpers gain a better understanding of its goals, structure, logic and parts.

Frequently asked questions

Q: why are there two different apis to do (almost) the same things ? ie CSG.sphere() vs sphere() A: this is due to how the project was developped on top of CSG.js : there were initial implementations, (CSG.XXX) and another 'layer' was added on top to be more functional oriented and similar to OpenSCAD

From version v2.0 onwards there will only be a single, functional oriented, unified API that takes some aspects of both the 'older' apis

Q: why are there some functions that take options first , objects second, while others take objects first, options second A: A lot of very nice functionality was added without taking overall coherence into account: this is something that will be fixed from v2.0 onwards : the rule of thumb will be options first, objects second
Q: why options first ? A: A few reasons:
- making functional composition easier (currying etc) see the rationale behind similar decisions in Ramda and Lodash-fp
- a lot of functions can accept a variable number of objects to operate on, but a single set of params : for example translate(options, obj1, obj2, obj3...)

Each 'flavor' of jscad has a different set of available inputs & output (called side effects): ie ,

the desktop and CLI versions obviously have access to your hard drive in an unrestrained manner
while the web version only has access to what files & folders you drag & drop onto it , and what you write in the editor