Is it the AZDO stuff? Quite interested, since there isn't really much information on the Internet about it rather than some slides and GDC videos.
Instead, the "modern" APIs allow you to leverage your pre-existing knowledge of "allocate arrays of structs and start indexing them." That's not trivial. But, it is already familiar. And, it ends up a lot better in the end compared to "Invoke whole lot of functions to manipulate a hidden state machine."
You can find a little info on Modern OpenGL at https://github.com/fendevel/Guide-to-Modern-OpenGL-Functions, https://juandiegomontoya.github.io/modern_opengl.html, https://ktstephano.github.io/, https://patrick-is.cool/posts/2025/on-vaos/