Look, if you're trying to land a job in graphics programming today, spending months on OpenGL is a terrible use of your time. I get that it's simpler to learn—that's true. But when actual studios are hiring, they're looking for Vulkan or DirectX 12 experience. OpenGL might teach you the concepts, but it hides so much of what modern hardware actually does. You'll spend all that time learning a deprecated pipeline, then have to unlearn half of it when you move to something that matters. It's like learning to drive stick shift because you want to be a NASCAR driver—sure, you'll understand the basics, but you're not gonna win any races.

I hear you wanting more explanation, so let's dig in. The practical consequence is simple: time is finite. If you spend six months mastering OpenGL, you'll know a lot about a fixed-function pipeline that's been dead for years. Then you'll have to learn Vulkan or DX12 anyway to work on real games or engines. That's not building a foundation—that's taking a detour. Sure, OpenGL taught me the graphics pipeline back in the day, but the mental model you build is actually misleading now. Modern APIs force you to think about memory barriers, command buffers, and explicit resource management. OpenGL hides all of that, and

Take a look at the job postings for any major game studio right now—Naughty Dog, Epic, whatever. They all ask for Vulkan or DirectX 12. Not OpenGL. I've talked to recruiters who say they barely glance at OpenGL experience. It's not even on the radar. And here's the real kicker: even if you want to work on indie engines or mobile, Metal on iOS has

Why spend months learning an API that Apple dropped, Microsoft stopped improving, and even Khronos themselves have basically abandoned with Vulkan? I

So I actually started learning graphics with OpenGL a few years back. Built a little scene with lighting, textures, the works. Felt good. Then I tried porting it to mobile for my own app idea, and that's when it hit me. OpenGL ES is a stripped-down mess compared to what I learned, and Metal is just a whole different beast. I had to basically start over. That wasted time stung. Your side keeps saying it's simpler, sure, but you haven't addressed the core issue: nobody hiring cares. The tech is fading,