>Some just like making pretty pictures. Some are thinking of themselves as future game-engine writers. Both of these students will learn more using a framework

>Some just like making pretty pictures. Some are thinking of themselves as future game-engine writers. Both of these students will learn more using a framework or game engine than immediate mode OpenGL. > I teach low-ish level graphics programming so that my students will know low-ish level graphics programming. What you're teaching isn't the real graphics pipeline anymore or even an abstraction of it. It's limited high level graphics programming that both doesn't teach how modern high level graphics work is done and doesn't teach fundamentals either. You're really just teaching how to write code for 90s fixed function APIs. I agree that it is a valid stepping stone (many of us started there), but I think there are much better options now than there were 15 years ago. Anyway, OpenGL is not an educational library and making the lives of educators easier should not be a concern of Khronos (or anyone). As an educator you can always build your own framework that has the appropriate level of "low-ish" levelness but holds the students hands enough to not confuse them, if you don't feel that current options are sufficient.