{"slug": "autocad", "name": "AutoCAD", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "", "recommenders": 1, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 2.011, "rising": -0.33, "first": "2026-03-09", "latest": "2026-08-15", "why": "", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 4, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": false, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["AutoCAD"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 784921060, "item_id": 49057566, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057566", "by": "adrian_b", "date": "2026-07-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the technical drawing program AutoCAD for MS-DOS", "excerpt": "In 1990, I was using the BRIEF editor on MS-DOS, which was an editor for programmers and which was quite similar to Emacs (also including a scripting language somewhat similar to LISP). BRIEF must have already existed for some years. It had a completely configurable auto-complete, which I rewrote to insert big code templates in the languages that I was using (C, C++, Fortran, Basic, assembly), covering almost all boi", "context": "", "use_case": "technical drawing", "switched_from": "", "story": "No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "eggy", "context": "CAD professional", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47752584", "date": "2026-04-13"}, {"by": "Piyush_Dinde", "context": "engineering college background", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313183", "date": "2026-03-09"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["cad scripting", "technical drawing", "dynamic model creation", "engineering cad"], "compared": [{"slug": "rhino", "name": "Rhino", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49301215", "title": "Show HN: LuaCAD \u2013 Parametric CAD Scripted in Lua", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49056424", "title": "No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47721997", "title": "Show HN: FluidCAD \u2013 Parametric CAD with JavaScript", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47567242", "title": "Build123d: A Python CAD programming library", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313073", "title": "Show HN: I built a word art generator for 3D printers", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 788944288, "item_id": 49309018, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49309018", "by": "psd1", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "i used lisp in AutoCAD in the 00s", "excerpt": "A scripting engine is a great feature in cad, you should be proud of your achievement. The reason I'm not personally interested is that i used lisp in AutoCAD in the 00s. What i like most about lua is that it's not php. It's a sane choice, but insipid. https://www.cadtutor.net/tutorials/autolisp/quick-start.php", "context": "", "use_case": "CAD scripting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: LuaCAD \u2013 Parametric CAD Scripted in Lua"}, {"id": 784921060, "item_id": 49057566, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057566", "by": "adrian_b", "date": "2026-07-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the technical drawing program AutoCAD for MS-DOS", "excerpt": "In 1990, I was using the BRIEF editor on MS-DOS, which was an editor for programmers and which was quite similar to Emacs (also including a scripting language somewhat similar to LISP). BRIEF must have already existed for some years. It had a completely configurable auto-complete, which I rewrote to insert big code templates in the languages that I was using (C, C++, Fortran, Basic, assembly), covering almost all boi", "context": "", "use_case": "technical drawing", "switched_from": "", "story": "No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s"}, {"id": 764041345, "item_id": 47752584, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47752584", "by": "eggy", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to program AutoCAD in AutoLISP", "excerpt": "Looks great! Nice work. I am steeped in CAD for my work flow, so I used to program AutoCAD in AutoLISP, Rhino in Rhinoscript, now F#, and FreeCAD in Python as well as Blender. They have the geometry engines built-in and tested over decades. I think this is good for the maker with a 3D printer to do parts that are relatively simple (not discounting parametric code to make complex shapes here). Industry needs integrati", "context": "CAD professional", "use_case": "CAD scripting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: FluidCAD \u2013 Parametric CAD with JavaScript"}, {"id": 761244224, "item_id": 47577764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577764", "by": "Tagbert", "date": "2026-03-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to do a lot with AutoLisp in AutoCAD back when it ran in DOS.", "excerpt": "I used to do a lot with AutoLisp in AutoCAD back when it ran in DOS. Did a lot of dynamic creation and manipulation of the models with it. It was useful and a lot of fun (aside from parenthesis nesting).", "context": "", "use_case": "dynamic model creation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Build123d: A Python CAD programming library"}, {"id": 757010928, "item_id": 47313183, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313183", "by": "Piyush_Dinde", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use AutoCAD heavily. I was terrible at it.", "excerpt": "Pretty cool. My niece actually loved it! I do not have much exposure with the designing tools. But always found them fascinating to use. The name wordcad took me back to my engineering college days when I used to use AutoCAD heavily. I was terrible at it.", "context": "engineering college background", "use_case": "engineering CAD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built a word art generator for 3D printers"}]}