This is a problem that I have always encountered but at the moment it seems to be occurring so frequently that I feel justified in posting this.
The problem is that beginners (sometimes even those with a fair amount of experience) to OpenGL are not checking OpenGL for errors (sometimes they aren’t even aware that such a thing exists because they’re so used to Java exceptions), hence they find that a function “isn’t working” or that their whole screen goes black for “no reason.”
When I started learning OpenGL, I approached it from The Red Book and I’m 80% certain that one of the first things it taught you to do was call glGetError(), and then kept telling you, because this is the first thing I do in any OpenGL program I write. Now I think that all the new tutorials people are writing (which are good - don’t get me wrong) need to have this same insistence or at the very least a mention of this.
Now the discussion: Do people think that it would be appropriate to take some action on this front? Primarily I was thinking of an OpenGL specific please-read-before-posting thread in the Articles and Tutorials section. But what are other people’s opinions?