w00t! OpenGL 3.2 was officially posted today! This is the third OpenGL release in the last 12 months:

• OpenGL 3.0 at SIGGRAPH 2008
• OpenGL 3.1 at GDC 2009
• OpenGL 3.2 at SIGGRAPH 2009

I think at this point we've closed most of the function gap between OpenGL and "the other API." Now that we can expose, either through core GL or through ARB extensions, pretty much all of what the hardware can do, we can focus on just making OpenGL better. This was an intentional decision, and we took a lot of flak for it. Lots of people we pissed that there was no Long's Peak object model, for example. I don't know that we'll ever get that exactly, but I'm hopeful and excited for the future.

Given our steady rate of progress and the positive feedback that we've been seeing, I think the ARB has started to regain some credibility. As much as I liked a lot of the design ideas for Long's Peak, it underscored one of the most important lessons of software development: take small steps. Any large project that tries to do a massive redesign all in one go (see my previous blog entry about my GLSL compiler) is going to get nothing but pain. Big pieces of software have to be redesigned incrementally. Trying to do it all at once fails (always!) because it takes too long and you can't get feedback as to what works / doesn't work.

/me gets off his soapbox... for now...

The OpenGL 3.2 spec is available from the OpenGL registry, and there is an active discussion on the OpenGL message boards.

P.S.: Don't ask me what we are planning because a) nothing is decided yet, and b) I couldn't say anything even if we did.