I’ve got both the Red and Blue books plus many others, but they are now out of date (version 1.2).
The pop-ups tips in the documentation would be just the finishing touches and are not essential, but are fancy. I realise that this is probably expecting too much, especially since we haven’t even got the basics at the moment.
A wiki is a fantastic idea, but I don’t see much happening with it at the moment. I hope it starts taking off soon. Fingers crossed.
I therefore agree that the wiki is the best solution to this documentation problem.
D3D books are a stone waste of perfectly good cash. The API changes way too frequently; you’d go broke and insane trying to keep up.
Books in OpenGL make a little more sense, since the core API doesn’t change as frequently. But then again, with each new intervening extension, it’s back to the spec again. Don’t get me wrong, the spec is awesome, but not as convenient as a help file. After all, all we’re talking about here is the convenience of the format; the content is clearly already in place.
API books in general strike me more as a way for some folks to make money than an intrinsically good idea. Not that there’s anything wrong with making money, mind you.
Well in my opinion, if you’ve never used a 3D API before, you should buy a book on the subject. Read it while having a ****, read it while waiting for a bus etc. Once you know how to use one 3D API, learning others is as simple as following some tutorials, plenty of which exist on the internet for OpenGL.
From a ‘n00b’ perspective. I am quite fluent in DirectX and HLSL. Just got a recent job where a requirement is to use Linux/OpenGL. I spent a good hour or two searching the internet for the headers and libraries for OpenGL v2.0 and could not find anything. I have no Linux or Unix background, just Windows development. I was under the assumption that I had to find an SDK or something similar to how DirectX is distributed (like I said, I’m a n00b). Thanks to some other forum members, they suggested to download and install new drivers from the GPU manufacturer, that this where the up-to-date stuff is. The FAQ didn’t state this, nor does the WIKI page. In fact, a ton of links within the FAQ are broken. This doesn’t really ‘turn me off’ to OpenGL, but I had hoped for “something” a little more organized. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I want and SDK (though would be nice with all of the doodads mentioned above), but definately something more organized as to how and where to get stuff. For instance in the FAQ (or Wiki) something that just plainly stated “For the latest OpenGL headers and libraries, you will find them when you update your drivers.” Or something like that. This would have saved me some time to do other things than to search for something that didn’t (doesn’t) exist.
I bought the Red book and the Superbible, and am waiting for the Orange book. Learning the API hasn’t been a problem (in fact I like the similarities between OpenGL and Direct3D, and I don’t care who invented what first!). The problem that I had was just figuring out where to get everything.
Yes the FAQ is very old, currently being replaced by the wiki.
For instance in the FAQ (or Wiki) something that just plainly stated “For the latest OpenGL headers and libraries, you will find them when you update your drivers.” Or something like that.
you mean, like the first sentence here : http://www.opengl.org/wiki/index.php/Getting_started
and also talked about how to “access” the higher than 1.1 functionality. It also talked about glew, glee and some others.
The information was good and accurate. Beleive me
OK, now we have the WIKI. Let me make some comments on it.
If you are running Windows 98/NT/2000, the OpenGL library has already been installed on your system. Otherwise, download the Windows OpenGL library from Microsoft.
OK, some people have WinXP, Win2003, WinXP 64 bit
You don’t need to install that old thing, which is for the very first release of Win95.
Since no one runs Win95, I think it’s best to forget about it and forget about opengl95.exe
