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I agree with you, but I think it does depend on the goal of the tutorial/class/whatever. I teach an introductory university 3-D graphics programming class, and

I agree with you, but I think it does depend on the goal of the tutorial/class/whatever. I teach an introductory university 3-D graphics programming class, and I use legacy fixed-function OpenGL at the beginning, and then legacy GL + GLSL for lighting & textures. But then my goal is not to teach people how to use some particular API. I want to introduce principles of lowish-level graphics programming. I need to use some API, of course, but I can choose that with a view toward how helpful it is in teaching concepts (and also system independence). OTOH, if I were running some kind of training seminar for people who wanted to go out and write the world's greatest game as soon as they were done, then my approach would obviously be a pretty poor one.

pmr_ 15y ago
But isn't teaching 'lowish-level graphics programming' the point of this book? If you learn it with the fixed function pipeline it is actually harder to understand the low-level concepts. Simply consider the color issue: calling glColor once will set the color for all vertices that you are going to emit; the hardware, however, does not work like that. Shaders on the other hand make it clear how the pipeline works.
- stephth 15y ago
  * the hardware, however, does not work like that.* Could you explain that?
  - Impossible 15y ago
    On older fixed function hardware the fixed function pipeline mapped to hardware pretty directly. On modern GPUs most of the fixed function pipeline is emulated in drivers and shaders. So if you're doing "proper" low level graphics programming for modern GPUs you are writing shader code. Working with fixed function is writing for a low level abstraction that doesn't represent the way hardware actually works. It's true that using a 3D API at all is an abstraction that hides and simplifies many of the workings of the actual hardware, but modern APIs are much closer to actual hardware than legacy ones.

pmr_ 15y ago

But isn't teaching 'lowish-level graphics programming' the point of this book? If you learn it with the fixed function pipeline it is actually harder to understand the low-level concepts. Simply consider the color issue: calling glColor once will set the color for all vertices that you are going to emit; the hardware, however, does not work like that. Shaders on the other hand make it clear how the pipeline works.

stephth 15y ago
* the hardware, however, does not work like that.* Could you explain that?
- Impossible 15y ago
  On older fixed function hardware the fixed function pipeline mapped to hardware pretty directly. On modern GPUs most of the fixed function pipeline is emulated in drivers and shaders. So if you're doing "proper" low level graphics programming for modern GPUs you are writing shader code. Working with fixed function is writing for a low level abstraction that doesn't represent the way hardware actually works. It's true that using a 3D API at all is an abstraction that hides and simplifies many of the workings of the actual hardware, but modern APIs are much closer to actual hardware than legacy ones.