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OpenGL has many strengths. OpenGL is very portable. It will run for nearly every platform in existence, and it will run well. It even runs on Windows NT 4.0, which Direct3D doesn't even do (well, it does, but you have to use DirectX 3; do you really want to use a version of Direct3D that is 5 versions old? Also, note that Windows 2000 and XP, which are both based on the NT kernel, can use the latest versions of Direct3D). The reason OpenGL runs for so many platforms is because of its Open Standard. What this means is that any company with a platform who wishes to support OpenGL may buy a license from SGI and then implement the entire OpenGL feature set for that platform.
OpenGL has a wide range of features, both in its core and through extensions. Its extension feature allows it to stay immediately current with new hardware features, despite the mess it can cause. Because the ARB is made up of a diverse group of companies, the features available in OpenGL represent a wide range of interests, and thus make it useful in many different applications.
OpenGL is used for many different things. Its stability and support on a wide range of platforms has a lot of appeal to people in tech sectors outside of the game industry. OpenGL is used in such places as the military, professional 3D modeling and rendering, CAD, and so on. It's recognized as the industry standard for graphics everywhere except the game industry, where Direct3D provides viable competition.
Weaknesses
I mention extensions here too. Though they are powerful, they do make code messy, very much so at times. They also make it confusing with any compiler that doesn't offer reference tracking (browse file). The worst part is, many newer extensions are completely card or vendor specific. Although useful for testing a graphics card's abilities, vendor-specific extensions are not frequently used by commercial applications.
The function naming conventions can seem like overkill at times, since many IDEs have context sensitive help which can show you the parameters that are required, and in any case, if you know how to use a function, you should already know what parameters it takes. In addition, having 12 different names for a function may seem strange to a C++ programmer accustomed to function overloading (of course, since C doesn't support function overloading, there really isn't any way to get around it).
Found this article online, just wondering whether this is proven correct and free from bias? Especially the part where italicized part because many of my graduate student friends have told me that using OpenGL is very simple...
11-16-2007, 10:28 PM
OpenGL Strength and Weakness 
Linear Mode
