title: OpenGL ES 2: Are vertex and fragment shaders necessary for simple drawing?
body: <p>I'm currently working on some drawing routines using geometry generated at runtime and only flat colored.  While searching for a minimal GL setup to do my drawing <em>(I'm matching the screen resolution and on I'm iOS, but the question holds for other ES 2 platforms as well)</em>, I'm seeing that most examples use vertex and fragment shaders, but not all of them.</p>
  
  <p>If I don't plan to use any textures or lighting <em>(just direct color copying/blending)</em> and I don't plan on doing any transformations that can't be done by manipulating the view matrix, do I really need to set up vertex and/or fragment shaders?  If not, is there any advantage to using shaders over a shader-less approach?</p>