5 ms·

I've been reading through the Vulkan spec, which is in way similar in that OpenGL has been extended since its introduction in 1992 with more and more features t

I've been reading through the Vulkan spec, which is in way similar in that OpenGL has been extended since its introduction in 1992 with more and more features to support new graphics capabilities as they evolved. I've seen Vulkan called the successor to OpenGL, but reading the spec it seems more like the end game for raster graphics card programming. OpenGL 4.0 was released in 2010, and since then changes have been incremental. We more or less have figured out how to do raster graphics (ray tracing may be a different story), so it made sense to invest tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars to develop the Vulkan spec, and then many millions more to implement it. What other technologies are there were we are more or less at the end game? I know Qt5 widgets is considered feature complete for desktop apps.

jchw 8y ago
Qt Widgets is an amazing library, but honestly it is both more and less featureful than it needs to be in various cases. The rich text document stuff still holds up OK for basic cases, but I think the text rendering story could be a bit better. Last time I was doing low level text stuff in Qt, performance was not super impressive, and some of the APIs left a bit to be desired.
- jlarcombe 8y ago
  Well said. The notion that Qt widgets are "finished" was just an aspiration not to spend much more money on it I think; they sort of rowed back on this when it became apparent that Qt Quick isn't always appropriate, but by then it had sort of spread around as a "Qt fact" amongst people who didn't actually use it. The number of rough edges, missing bits and outright bugs mean that it's certainly not "finished"... just like all software really.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    They helped spread the rummor when plenty of new features are QML only, specially when targeting non-desktop devices. To this day if you want a common file dialog that works properly across all Qt deployment targets, you need to use QML, as the Widgets version is not adaptive and will display a tiny desktop common file dialog on an LCD display, for example.
DonHopkins 8y ago
Photoshop pretty much got it right a couple decades or so ago, and they've just been porting it, smearing on new lipstick, and figuring out how to make more money with it ever since.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  I would argue that this is true of most of Microsoft Office as well. When did they really add a new feature to PowerPoint that you had to have? And it's no surprise both Adobe and Microsoft have pushed people towards a subscription model for this software: Nobody in their right mind would pay for upgrades otherwise. Arguably Office you need every ten years to ensure you have security updates because of the amount of foreign content you process with it, but Adobe? Psh.
  - NullPrefix 8y ago
    Don't know when it was added, but I recently found out that you can have multiple synchronized Word windows of the same document.
    - ksaj 8y ago
      At least 15 years ago you could drag a marker that hides above the vertical scroll to create multiple views of the same document. I didn't know it carried into other windows, so that might be newer.
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      On different people's screens?
      - Someone 8y ago
        Yes (in Office 365, in your browser). See https://support.office.com/en-us/article/collaborate-on-word-documents-with-real-time-co-authoring-7dd3040c-3f30-4fdd-bab0-8586492a1f1d https://support.office.com/en-us/article/collaborate-on-word...
  - 8y ago
azernik 8y ago
My preferred metaphor is to the RISC revolution. Just like RISC decoupled CPU design from programming language design (in the sense that hardware was often designed to make assembly coding easy), Vulkan has decoupled shader language design from driver writing. OpenGL was designed under the assumption that the general game-dev public would be writing shaders for direct consumption by the driver/hardware combo; Vulkan, on the other hand, seems to be designed to be a) written by a narrow group of game engine developers, and b) generated by compilers from higher-level shader languages. (NB: I Am Not An Expert and these are my Uneducated Impressions.)
- smallstepforman 8y ago
  Vulkan was primarily designed to allow issuing batch based (queue) validated instructions sets, issued from multiple threads. Lessons learned from OpenGL ES 2.0 showed only a subset of techniques is needed, hence the API is smaller. Shaders are precompiled. Smaller, simpler driver.
flohofwoe 8y ago
I think/hope the "endgame" for 3D APIs is that they disappear completely into compilers. Vulkan still has too many compromises and design warts to support different GPU architectures from high- to low-end and is already more complex than GL ever was after 25 years of development (just look at the huge extension list that already exists for Vulkan). I don't need an "CPU API" to run code on the CPU in my machine, so why do I need to go through an API to run code on the GPU (hint: it's mostly about GPU makers protecting their IP).
- imtringued 8y ago
  The irony is that the Raspberry Pi is basically a GPU chip with some small CPU cores tacked on. So you yes you actually need the GPU API to run code on the CPU.

jchw 8y ago

Qt Widgets is an amazing library, but honestly it is both more and less featureful than it needs to be in various cases. The rich text document stuff still holds up OK for basic cases, but I think the text rendering story could be a bit better. Last time I was doing low level text stuff in Qt, performance was not super impressive, and some of the APIs left a bit to be desired.

jlarcombe 8y ago
Well said. The notion that Qt widgets are "finished" was just an aspiration not to spend much more money on it I think; they sort of rowed back on this when it became apparent that Qt Quick isn't always appropriate, but by then it had sort of spread around as a "Qt fact" amongst people who didn't actually use it. The number of rough edges, missing bits and outright bugs mean that it's certainly not "finished"... just like all software really.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  They helped spread the rummor when plenty of new features are QML only, specially when targeting non-desktop devices. To this day if you want a common file dialog that works properly across all Qt deployment targets, you need to use QML, as the Widgets version is not adaptive and will display a tiny desktop common file dialog on an LCD display, for example.

DonHopkins 8y ago

Photoshop pretty much got it right a couple decades or so ago, and they've just been porting it, smearing on new lipstick, and figuring out how to make more money with it ever since.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
I would argue that this is true of most of Microsoft Office as well. When did they really add a new feature to PowerPoint that you had to have? And it's no surprise both Adobe and Microsoft have pushed people towards a subscription model for this software: Nobody in their right mind would pay for upgrades otherwise. Arguably Office you need every ten years to ensure you have security updates because of the amount of foreign content you process with it, but Adobe? Psh.
- NullPrefix 8y ago
  Don't know when it was added, but I recently found out that you can have multiple synchronized Word windows of the same document.
  - ksaj 8y ago
    At least 15 years ago you could drag a marker that hides above the vertical scroll to create multiple views of the same document. I didn't know it carried into other windows, so that might be newer.
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    On different people's screens?
    - Someone 8y ago
      Yes (in Office 365, in your browser). See https://support.office.com/en-us/article/collaborate-on-word-documents-with-real-time-co-authoring-7dd3040c-3f30-4fdd-bab0-8586492a1f1d https://support.office.com/en-us/article/collaborate-on-word...
- 8y ago

azernik 8y ago

My preferred metaphor is to the RISC revolution. Just like RISC decoupled CPU design from programming language design (in the sense that hardware was often designed to make assembly coding easy), Vulkan has decoupled shader language design from driver writing. OpenGL was designed under the assumption that the general game-dev public would be writing shaders for direct consumption by the driver/hardware combo; Vulkan, on the other hand, seems to be designed to be a) written by a narrow group of game engine developers, and b) generated by compilers from higher-level shader languages. (NB: I Am Not An Expert and these are my Uneducated Impressions.)

smallstepforman 8y ago
Vulkan was primarily designed to allow issuing batch based (queue) validated instructions sets, issued from multiple threads. Lessons learned from OpenGL ES 2.0 showed only a subset of techniques is needed, hence the API is smaller. Shaders are precompiled. Smaller, simpler driver.

flohofwoe 8y ago

I think/hope the "endgame" for 3D APIs is that they disappear completely into compilers. Vulkan still has too many compromises and design warts to support different GPU architectures from high- to low-end and is already more complex than GL ever was after 25 years of development (just look at the huge extension list that already exists for Vulkan). I don't need an "CPU API" to run code on the CPU in my machine, so why do I need to go through an API to run code on the GPU (hint: it's mostly about GPU makers protecting their IP).

imtringued 8y ago
The irony is that the Raspberry Pi is basically a GPU chip with some small CPU cores tacked on. So you yes you actually need the GPU API to run code on the CPU.