glbinding VS magnum

Ever heard of https://glbinding.org ?

You should checkout glbinding, it might give you some ideas for your own wrapper.

I have based my career on top of C++/backend/soft-real time systems.

I still have to read the full paper, thanks for the post!

Many people rant about C++, but, IMHO, overall, taking into account ecosystem, tools, etc. C++ stands as an almost unbeatable technology when you put everything together. It has quirks, asymmetries and all of that.

But since C++11 it is nicer to use and all the standards after it have been improving on it: generic lambdas, structured bindings, string non-template parameters, constexpr and consteval... it is amazing what you can do with C++ that is difficult or almost impossible to do with other languages.

On the missing pieces I would mention that you need to use macros to have some kind of reflection for members and pattern matching and networking would be really nice to have.

Modules are still an experiment implementation-wise, but hey, they will improve on the side of hiding implementation details by a big margin.

As for the ecosystem, nowadays you have CMake (whose language sucks badly) and Meson. Together with Conan things have improved a lot since I started coding in around 2001.

Pack that with an IDE like CLion or Visual Studio + Resharper or lightweight IDE (Emacs + Lsp and the like) and you have an environment that is very competitive and whose code can be compiled almost anywhere. From ARM to x86, MIPS and even Webassembly.

That is why I think C++ is still the way to go if what you want is performance: you also have interfaces such as OpenCL/GL/Vulkan/SIMD libraries (though not C++ standard) where you can access hardware. Also, vendors and open source have things such as https://github.com/cginternals/glbinding

Magnum

If you want something that gives you more control you could use magnum.

Therefore, in terms of artist mindshare, Blender is the leading open source 3D creation program, but not the leading 3D creation program. I think Godot is already in a similar situation, and has been for a few years now. In comparison, most other open source game engines have focused on providing low-level functionality. These certainly fulfill a niche, but in my experience, most people want something that works at a higher level and comes with a built-in editor.

Magnum is worth checking out.

Since you want something lightweight, I'll assume you mean the former. If that's the case, then checkout bgfx or Magnum. Magnum does include some extra features typically found in a graphics engine.

You could try Magnum it wraps SDL and others, but you might find it maybe too low-level. It's certainly not Love2D.

C++ is similar to C in that there are multiple "styles" of use that vary from project to project. Other, usually newer languages (C#, Python, Rust, etc) tend to have a stronger sense of what idioms should be used. Whereas, for instance, some C++ projects (like some GUI libraries and game/graphics engines) will partially/entirely replace the STL (and older ones may have been around before C++ had a standard library aside from C's), or forbid the use of certain C++ features (example).

Magnum Graphics

> He has Vulkan support in here with a clearly marked file named Pipeline.cpp. The guy knows what a pipeline is...

There is a Vulkan API wrapper. However, there is no "Vk Renderer" -- no code seems to use the Vulkan parts of the code system, and the two projects seem unrelated.

> * Is this not a UBO interface?

There are ways of making a uniform buffer, however the examples don't cover them and the API doesn't adapt automatically. See how all of the setters assert if UBOs are enabled.

https://github.com/mosra/magnum/blob/cfc02599e54e02337dd56bb...

> * I don't see why you think there's limited support for multiple framebuffers...?

The code I do see is about binding/unbinding framebuffers in a stateful manner, e.g. AbstractFramebuffer::bind(), rather than supporting passes.

> None of your criticism seem well intentioned. It might behoove you to give people the benefit of the doubt and realize that you may be able to learn something from them, even if they're so clearly inferior to you.

To put it simply, I've taught enough graphics to know first-hand the kinds of misconceptions that OpenGL-styled APIs can cause, and I'm just a bit tired to see it continue. Admittedly I was a bit harsh, I don't mean any harm towards the author. There are just graphics APIs with interfaces I consider to be much better designed.