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This has been kicking my ass lately as I am trying to build a generic GL abstraction over the past year or so. OpenGL is in such an odd state that the actual gr

This has been kicking my ass lately as I am trying to build a generic GL abstraction over the past year or so. OpenGL is in such an odd state that the actual graphics hardware hasn’t changed significantly in a decade or more, but the API certainly has grown to be more elegant. OpenGL 2-3 had a nice way of doing things, 3.3-4.1 is a weird and inconsistent API, and 4.3+ is nice again. But good luck finding support for 4.1+ anywhere. Not on macs, not on old cards, not on web, not on mobile. So in 3.3-4.1 land, you get to do the exact same things you’d do in 4.3 land, but in more tedious ways programmatically, because the drivers and implementations decide how elegant you are able to make your code and abstractions. The commands that end up on the GPU are the exact same regardless but the developer experience is highly variable. My point is GL versions do not delineate features nor performance enhancements past a certain point, they delineate periods of programmer happiness. It is solely up to the drivers, not the hardware, not the actual machinery, to determine this metric. GL, being a standard rather than an implementation, suffers for this. I happily await webgpu finalization.

contravariant 4y ago
What kind of cursed limbo is 4.2 in?
- moth-fuzz 4y ago
  Well, historically, 4.0 was made to be roughly equivalent to 3.3 IIRC. 4.1 didn't add much and 4.2 started seeing changes going in the direction that was roughly complete by 4.5 I'd say. So each version bump in the 4.x range is just a history of getting a slightly cleaner API each version until you get to a version where you can personally say "I'm okay with this now" based on your preferences as a developer. For me personally that version is 4.3, it has the features where I think "this makes sense as an API" and things that came after that were just extra conveniences. But what are just conveniences for some developers are the basic core abstractions for other developers, and where you draw that line is up to you. In my personal opinion, 4.2 is like, halfway to 4.3 But sometimes it's more comfortable to go none of the way than half of the way, hence me targeting 4.0 in my most recent library.

contravariant 4y ago

What kind of cursed limbo is 4.2 in?

moth-fuzz 4y ago
Well, historically, 4.0 was made to be roughly equivalent to 3.3 IIRC. 4.1 didn't add much and 4.2 started seeing changes going in the direction that was roughly complete by 4.5 I'd say. So each version bump in the 4.x range is just a history of getting a slightly cleaner API each version until you get to a version where you can personally say "I'm okay with this now" based on your preferences as a developer. For me personally that version is 4.3, it has the features where I think "this makes sense as an API" and things that came after that were just extra conveniences. But what are just conveniences for some developers are the basic core abstractions for other developers, and where you draw that line is up to you. In my personal opinion, 4.2 is like, halfway to 4.3 But sometimes it's more comfortable to go none of the way than half of the way, hence me targeting 4.0 in my most recent library.