I do agree Vulkan is too cumbersome, but OpenGL is definitely obsolete.

The OpenGL API with its binding-based approach is also very confusing for beginners, but the replacement Direct State Access API came too late (after Apple already decided they would deprecate OpenGL, so it never got supported on macOS).

And the fact that the GLSL parser and compiler are part of the driver means there are tons of hardware-specific bugs and miscompilations. Intel integrated drivers on Windows are notorious for being especially buggy.

All of those make OpenGL a pretty poor target for learning. Personally, I would recommend WebGPU to people who want to get into graphics programming. It's very similar to DirectX/Metal, and like a more streamlined Vulkan. The WGPU implementation of WebGPU has a C API, which also has C++ headers, and a native Rust API. And you can also use WebGPU in your browser from JavaScript, if you don't know any native languages.

> Personally, I would recommend WebGPU to people who want to get into graphics programming.

Unfortunately WebGPU is like 5 years behind OpenGL 4.6, which is already 8 years old. WebGPU is pretty ancient.

What is the current status of WebGPU support in browsers? I tried to get into it a while ago go, when the writing was already on the wall for WebGL. But WebGPU just wasn't there yet, so I had to stick with WebGL.