Years ago I read the flipcode article you linked and wrote a raytracer as an introductory exercise to 3D graphics. I even ended up reaching out to Jacco afterw

Years ago I read the flipcode article you linked and wrote a raytracer as an introductory exercise to 3D graphics. I even ended up reaching out to Jacco afterwards via linkedin to thank him for the making the tutorial, to my surprise he replied. It does seem like an excellent way to get introduced to 3D graphics. All the fully-featured triangle rasterizers are a huge pile of complexity. Especially if you're going hardware-accelerated and will also have the burden of navigating existing platform-specific GPU APIs. There's something to be said for just writing boring CPU-based code in your favorite language and getting to focus on the actual subject being explored.