Direct Modelling - lousy for learning hard stuff

I'm not going to rehash all the pros and cons of directmodelling vs history but there is one area - one critical area -where direct modelling will never match history - learning thesoftware and technical support.

Once you get beyond a certain stage with Soldiworks or any 3Dsystem the best way to learn is to look at how others build parts.In SolidWorks this is easy - you just step through the history.

There is no way to do this in a non history system as all you getis the "lump" and no hints as to how you arrived at that lump. Thisoccured to me today while I was working through Nelson Au's iPhonemodel on SolidSmack (nice work BTW Nelson). This is one of the waysI show people how SolidWorks, works. It is also the way you candissect a model to see how it has been built and how you can adviseon a better or alternative approach.

Funny that all the commentators have gone on and on about directmodelling ad naseum but as far as I know this hasn't been pickedup? Most people can pick up any 3D system in a day or two and Iadmit direct push pull stuff is probably faster to learn initially,but after a few days you want to try the hard stuff and this iswhere the history systems start to offer more I think.

Just an observation.....SolidworksGeneral