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One might argue that getting bogged down in minutiae is not the hallmark of a good API either. Vulkan is not available on Apple HW and Metal is not available e

One might argue that getting bogged down in minutiae is not the hallmark of a good API either. Vulkan is not available on Apple HW and Metal is not available elsewhere, while OpenGL is at least somewhat portable.

jsheard 3y ago
That's why I'm saying that people new to graphics should probably start with Dawn or wgpu nowadays. They follow the same shape as the modern native APIs, but in a more streamlined manner, and are portable to all of the major platforms without relying on Apples long-abandoned OpenGL implementation which is missing foundational features like compute shaders. If you go down the Rust route with wgpu then it doesn't even require delving into unsafe code. From that starting point there's a natural progression to tackling raw Vulkan, D3D12 or Metal if you outgrow what the WebGPU libraries are capable of. If you start from OpenGL instead then you have to unlearn all the nonsensical abstractions it teaches you.
cogman10 3y ago
Vulkan is available via MoltenVK. If you have sufficiently low level API that works similarly, then the benefit of two low level APIs is relatively direct translations are possible.
pjmlp 3y ago
Portable only to certain extent, the moment you start junggling extensions it could be a complete different API for all pratical purposes, depending on how much extensions one needs to take care of, and the different semantics across them, or similar extensions from different vendors. Also, OpenGL never really quite made it into game consoles, only in some ways not fully compatible, so if they are a target, one already needs to handle multiple APIs anyway.
- my123 3y ago
  The Nintendo Switch has a full GL4.6 implementation, and has Vulkan too. But that's an anomaly in the console world. (SW stack provided by NVIDIA)
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    It has, but you forgot to mention that the main API that actually exposes everything, is NVN.

jsheard 3y ago

That's why I'm saying that people new to graphics should probably start with Dawn or wgpu nowadays. They follow the same shape as the modern native APIs, but in a more streamlined manner, and are portable to all of the major platforms without relying on Apples long-abandoned OpenGL implementation which is missing foundational features like compute shaders. If you go down the Rust route with wgpu then it doesn't even require delving into unsafe code. From that starting point there's a natural progression to tackling raw Vulkan, D3D12 or Metal if you outgrow what the WebGPU libraries are capable of. If you start from OpenGL instead then you have to unlearn all the nonsensical abstractions it teaches you.

cogman10 3y ago

Vulkan is available via MoltenVK. If you have sufficiently low level API that works similarly, then the benefit of two low level APIs is relatively direct translations are possible.

pjmlp 3y ago

Portable only to certain extent, the moment you start junggling extensions it could be a complete different API for all pratical purposes, depending on how much extensions one needs to take care of, and the different semantics across them, or similar extensions from different vendors. Also, OpenGL never really quite made it into game consoles, only in some ways not fully compatible, so if they are a target, one already needs to handle multiple APIs anyway.

my123 3y ago
The Nintendo Switch has a full GL4.6 implementation, and has Vulkan too. But that's an anomaly in the console world. (SW stack provided by NVIDIA)
- pjmlp 3y ago
  It has, but you forgot to mention that the main API that actually exposes everything, is NVN.