> Without OpenGL being maintained, we are missing a critical “middle” drawing API.
OpenGL still works. You can set up an old-school glBegin()-glEnd() pipeline in as few as 10 lines of code, set up a camera and vertex transform, link in GLUT for some windowing, and you have the basic triangle/strip of triangles.
OpenGL is a fantastic way to introduce people to basic graphics programming. The really annoying part is textures, which can be gently abstracted over. However, at some point the abstractions will start to be either insufficient in terms of descriptive power, or inefficient, or leaky, and that's when advanced courses can go into Vulkan, CPU and then GPU-accelerated ray tracing, and more.
OpenGL still works. You can set up an old-school glBegin()-glEnd() pipeline in as few as 10 lines of code, set up a camera and vertex transform, link in GLUT for some windowing, and you have the basic triangle/strip of triangles.
OpenGL is a fantastic way to introduce people to basic graphics programming. The really annoying part is textures, which can be gently abstracted over. However, at some point the abstractions will start to be either insufficient in terms of descriptive power, or inefficient, or leaky, and that's when advanced courses can go into Vulkan, CPU and then GPU-accelerated ray tracing, and more.