because you can throw 3d data down the pipe naively and it 'just work', it comes out with the same problems as naive use of 2d data - that the transform from wo

because you can throw 3d data down the pipe naively and it 'just work', it comes out with the same problems as naive use of 2d data - that the transform from world to clip-space becomes the identity matrix, which results in aspect-ratio stretching. also the idea that old desktop OpenGL is valid any more grates and encourages using it... its something we would like to have died its death 5-10 years ago when it was already out of date. its also the case that all of the 'desired' functionality for 3d which is 'missing' is equally applicable to 2d and so equally missing from the API. there are no rotations 'out of the box', no aspect ratio correction, no texture mapping, no anything. this is what we expect from a low-level API, the minimum set of features required to make the hardware do the job - not an encyclopaedic library of derivative functionality (this is the place of a higher level library than the hardware interface). i think the author has confused it being a low-level API with it being 2D. these are not the same. its just as devoid of features regardless as to what space you are rendering in... i can really understand it if coming from a web background where the stack is gigantic and "low-level" is an utterly foreign concept. (also, in my defence, i didn't go into great detail, since i commented on the post itself to avoid polluting HN with a conversation thread)