This is one of the concepts I really like, and from what I can see (features in) Houdini seems to be, to a much greater extent than other 3d apps I have used and seen. It is another reason why I really like Houdini a lot.

I am asking this from a user's point of view, not necessarily how the code internally works. That doesn't mean I don't want to hear developers' take, I do

I am not very experienced to know all parts of it to claim that it's orthogonal though.

Also for people who are not familiar with the concept, here is a useful article:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch04s02.html [faqs.org]

Wat is othagonal?

thexon
Wat is othagonal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_coordinates [en.wikipedia.org]

lol I am not talking about orthogonal coords, but orthogonality in software development:

http://techpatterns.com/docs/taoup/ch04s02.html [techpatterns.com]

They are changing the geometry libary for h12 … so it'll show if their softwaredesign is “orthogonal” or not .

I am really looking for that update as well