It's a neat tool for programmers, but mechanical engineers don't want no part of this. What they want is something that operates visually and lets them design parts and assemblies with direct manipulation and shaping of 3D objects, applying constraints and invariants, etc. This is why the industry has standardized on tools like SolidWorks and Inventor -- those tools operate the way a mech eng thinks.
Knuth ran into the same problem with METAFONT for typography: 99% of designers were not skilled enough at programming to effectively create beautiful fonts with METAFONT, nor did they wish to be. And today METAFONT is nowhere while Type1, TrueType, and OpenType proliferate.
I agree with this, the process of mechanical design very much involves messing around with things visually.
I've interned in a place that still used "good old" 2D, non-parametric autocad, and a lot of the "premilinary" design work took place on scratch pieces of paper. Sketch stuff up quickly, see how it looks and fits together iterate. Move to autocad for a to-scale sketch, then to drafters to the official engineering drawings.
Really? I've been working for a CAD company which only recently (about 10 years ago) got visual modelling for their 30+ years old product, and still a majority of their customers do not want to use it, preferring a huge, convoluted, awful text-based language instead.
Knuth ran into the same problem with METAFONT for typography: 99% of designers were not skilled enough at programming to effectively create beautiful fonts with METAFONT, nor did they wish to be. And today METAFONT is nowhere while Type1, TrueType, and OpenType proliferate.