[PD-dev] What should I learn?

[Ben Bogart]

Hello all,

I want to write my own OpenGL applications. I want to be able to use all
the features of the uptodate hardware (Geforce FX and/or Radeon 9700 +)
under mac OSX AND Linux.

I want to contribute to GEM.

First off If I want to develop on both Linux and OSX, ATI or Nvidia?
Nvidia seems to have easily downloadable dev kits, whereas ATI seems to
have links to other opensource projects (like DRI for XFree86) but I
could not find much on developing for linux using ATI HW.

This may be a bit of a tangent on this list, but I am a devoted GEM user
and I would like GEM to end up doing everything I find I need to do in
my own work. I think the best way to do that is contribute to GEM
whatever code I write for myself. Ideally this code would be
cross-platform and run on Linux and OSX. 

Whats the best place to start and where should I go?
(Cg? MESA? GLUT? DRI? C++? Objective C? OpenGL for OSX? Cocoa?) 

Thanks all
Ben