> We were not supposed to write parsers, but instead manually write out a 3D model vertex by vertex and then texture map them. Good grief. It's like writing as

> We were not supposed to write parsers, but instead manually write out a 3D model vertex by vertex and then texture map them. Good grief. It's like writing assembly: a good exercise, but only for trivial or particularly tricky parts of a program. For everything else, proper tooling (a compiler or a 3D modeler) is the way to go. I fully agree that the best learning experience is to build tools to automate away the annoying parts :-D