I still teach OpenGL ES 3.0

majorchord 20 points 12 comments October 27, 2026
eliasfarhan.ch · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (5 comments)

gulugawa

Sounds like a great way to make sure students understand fundamental concepts.

proc0

Nice breakdown. I've been wondering why it's so complicated to program on the GPU compared to the CPU. Is it a language paradigm issue or maybe a hardware design limitation? I always think of this when looking at the graphic APIs, espeically Vulkan.

yunnpp

I've learned more graphics writing software rasterizers and ray tracers than using any APIs. If the goal is to teach GPU rendering specifically, then OpenGL is indeed more amenable to teaching than the others. But if the goal is to teach graphics and rendering concepts, then OpenGL et al are just miserable and counter-productive.

avaer

GLES isn't a bad way to teach graphics but I wish there was a middle ground between it and VK. The worst part of GL is the mysterious global state you will never understand without studying the spec. The world could use an API that's basically GL but without global hidden singleton (per thread!) BS behind the scenes.

snvzz

The linked webpage refuses keyboard navigation e.g. cursors, pageup/down and home/end seem to do nothing. Awful.

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