The author has taught Introduction to Computer Graphics at SAE Institute Geneva for several years using OpenGL ES 3.0. At the Graphics Programming Conference, discussions revealed that industry talks on X-Plane and Teardown transitioned from older APIs to modern ones, yet the necessity of transitioning his own course was questioned. Two conference talks, one on teaching technical artists to build rasterizers and another on post-tutorial steps, influenced this reflection. A transition to a modern API requires translating all course content and updating concepts, which must be "really worth it" compared to the stability of OpenGL ES 3.0.
The course goal is for students to implement a 3D scene, not a generic renderer, resulting in a non data-driven executable. The curriculum follows learnopengl.com structure using OpenGL ES 3.0 samples like "Hello Triangle." The API was chosen for its cross-platform compatibility: Windows (assuming OpenGL 4.3), Linux, Android via native libs, Nintendo Switch, and WebGL2 via emscripten. While iOS/macOS are unsupported, the author notes this aligns with the Games Programming bachelor demographics. Compared to modern APIs, OpenGL ES 3.0 handles synchronization via drivers, reducing boilerplate initialization overhead, though this comes with unspecified costs regarding future relevance.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing