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The interface itself should be simple to understand and use, even if com- plex complex things can be done with it. This simplicity is carried into everything which derives from the interface.
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All API design decisions are made with perfor- mance performance in mind and this includes the possibility to run all API calls in a concur- rentconcurrent, multi-threaded environment. Nearly all software today which deals with large data sets needs to use multiple threads at some point. It is important for the interface to support this directly so it does not become a single thread com- munication communication bottleneck. This is why commands are self-contained and do not rely on every call.
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The interface should have as few assumptions built-in assumptions as possible built-in about which features the renderer supports. It should also be abstract enough that new features can be added without looking out of place.