> I wish the people in charge of the standard would give some thought to beginners and the increasingly awful learning curve.
Why would they?
I don't mean to be antagonistic, instead I want us to look at the incentives of standards developers. What they're trying to do is make an old API perform new tricks and perform faster. In doing so, they will implicitly be answering the requests of people at the height of their field, as those are the people who need the standard to evolve for their needs.
Beginners aren't even considered. That's a shame in the long run.
You're right; that seems to be the way these people think.
But still, I have an answer for them:
> Why would they [give some thought to beginners]?
Because they want there to be a next generation of OpenGL experts.
Once upon a time there was OpenGL and there was DirectX, and an awful lot of people chose DirectX. Today every week brings a new API/framework/language. Most of these quickly die a well deserved death, but some don't. The competition for developer mindshare is fierce. Why not target beginners?
The answer seems to be that they wanted the API to be cleaner and easier to implement. Starting with GL 3.0 they've been tossing out the old cruft to get a more focused, streamlined API.
That sounds good, but I think it's idiotic. Everyone still implements glBegin anyway. The ARB's approach has made the maintenance of API implementations more complicated, not less.
Why would they?
I don't mean to be antagonistic, instead I want us to look at the incentives of standards developers. What they're trying to do is make an old API perform new tricks and perform faster. In doing so, they will implicitly be answering the requests of people at the height of their field, as those are the people who need the standard to evolve for their needs.
Beginners aren't even considered. That's a shame in the long run.