I’m writing my JOGL program using an old version of the red book for reference (third edition, OpenGL v1.2). I keep running into folks talking about htings like pbuffers, vertex buffer objects, cube textures, shadow maps and other things that seem really useful and which do not appear in my guide. What is the best book to turn to to learn about these advanced features? Should I simply buy the latest edition of the red book? Is there a better one out there?
I’d recommend the current version of the Red Book; I recently purchased it myself but haven’t used it as a reference extensively. You are unlikely to find operating system-independent documentation for concepts like pbuffers since they are inherently tied to the window system except in cross-platform OpenGL bindings like JOGL. VBOs and cube map textures, for example, are however covered in the new Red Book.