Lucky for us, there are other ways to model! Often, these require you to have a deeper understanding of how CAD works and what you are making.
In one style (parametric modeling) You need to see into the future and note what you expect to change, defining and referencing features accordingly. Variables/planes/points are defined very early on and everything is based on them.
Or, you can ignore all history and treat each individual body as a fresh slab of marble ready to carve up via pushes, pulls, face moves, and face deletions. We call this direct modeling.
At larger companies where many engineers are involved in a big assembly, there is “in place” modeling where no assembly constraints are ever used and everything is modeled in context. What exists around your part defines how your part is modeled (non associatively please).
Another form of modeling that can be combined with the techniques above is boolean modeling. You never cut away directly with extrusions, instead, all features are bodies and you unite, subtract, or intersect them together to form your part! This is a very popular form of modeling among CAD veterans.
Today we are going to talk about a personal favorite, direct modeling! I still remember the feeling of awe when I first discovered what was possible here (and the subsequent feelings of frustration whenever it didn’t function perfectly). Direct modeling is the foil of sketch-based modeling, and primarily uses 3 functions: move/offset face, delete face, and replace face.