WebGL: Up and Running

Chapter 7. WebGL in Production

Now that we have covered the basic capabilities of WebGL and explored hands-on coding, it’s time to shift gears and talk about practical issues related to deployment. In this chapter, we will discuss a range of topics, including choice of engines and tools, file formats and delivery methods, and techniques for developing robust and secure applications.

Building applications in WebGL is a multidisciplinary exercise combining code and content, interface and database, art and engineering. WebGL applications have to be written with performance and robustness in mind, delivering a quality user experience throughout while gracefully handling adverse conditions. Further, given WebGL’s current adoption—impressively strong, but by no means ubiquitous at this point—it must be said that developers need to be aware of which browsers and devices support the standard, and how to cope with those that don’t.

The technologies underlying the WebGL ecosystem are the result of numerous global and local collaboration efforts—standards, open source projects, mashups, and even meetups—taking place against a rapidly changing web landscape. As professional web developers, it will serve us well to stay abreast of ongoing developments and be ready to adapt as the WebGL infrastructure evolves. Because many of the tools are new and evolving, consider this merely a point sample of what’s out there as of this writing. Appendix A contains a list of online resources that will help you ...