Re: [PyOpenGL-Devel] Test program?

[Ian M. <ia...@ge...>]

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 6:20 AM, Sam Bull <sam...@se...> wrote:

> On sab, 2014-05-24 at 10:16 -0700, Ian Mallett wrote:
> >         I have been reading the "red-book" how well does it translate
> >         to Py?
> > ​Pretty much directly. Keep in mind that the red book is OpenGL 2,
> > which is technically deprecated. It's not going away anytime soon, but
> > you should be aware that GL 3, 4 are now standard.
>
> The current edition, is for 4.3, which is what I've been reading. It
> includes the glsl stuff, so it's kind of the red/orange book now.
>
​To clarify: I have a slightly older edition of the Red Book (ostensibly
for GL 3.0 and 3.1). However, in my experience, it really only discusses GL
2 technology. I haven't had much use for it other than as a bookshelf
reference for the hard-to-Google.

I spot-checked it just now: there are three chapters dedicated to (now
completely) deprecated APIs (inc. display lists and GLU). What they did
have of GL​ 3, 4 functionality still used deprecated APIs (glVertex3f,
etc.). My guess is that the current edition continues the trend, leaving a
lot of legacy cruft in there.

----

My recommendation, if you're serious about learning OpenGL, is to learn C
|| C++ and then start writing some simple OpenGL 2 applications. There are
loads of examples of these, and the technology is both well-understood and
easy to use. Once you get comfortable with this (which may take several
years--weeks or months, at least), then I'd start playing with modern APIs
(GL 3 and on). This will give you a feel for how to use the graphics
pipeline, as well as a deep understanding of it.

Regarding language choice, I got *a lot* out of PyOpenGL (having taught
myself Python and PyOpenGL). Python is a wonderful language to learn, and
PyOpenGL is a great tool, but for advanced OpenGL (> GL 2), I have found
C-like-languages' directness advantageous.

Ian