Why should I use lwjgl?

[Entity]

I've used many 2d and 3d game libraries written in Java (most are based around lwjgl), and I have extensive experience with libgdx. I've been programming for over 10 years.

I am vaguely familiar with opengl, I understand a lot of the concepts but I've just never had the need to use it.

From my perspective writing something using opengl calls takes 10x the code, requires a significantly higher learning curve, and has the exact same results. So, why would anyone ever want to use lwjgl instead of something like libgdx or Slick2D?

[kappa]

Its mainly just an enabling library that gives Java access to bits not easily accessible with the standard Java API. Its very suitable for writing engines, frameworks and libraries (like LibGDX, jMonkeyEngine, etc) rather than writing games directly. If you do attempt to write a game directly on it you'll have to reinvent/reimplement a lot of stuff already available in higher level libraries and engines.

Another reason why you may want to use it directly is for learning the lower level stuff.

[Cornix]

Reasons for using low level API's:
If you want to write an AAA title game with the newest fastest bestest awesomeest engine you need low level API's to crank out each last frame you can.
If you want to write your own game engine you need to have access to the functionality one level deeper.
If you want to write a scientific / professional image / video processing software you may need a low level API because the higher level API's do not support your image source.
If you are curious about how things work in detail.

[Entity]

Okay, that's sort of what I figured, but people keep recommending lwjgl to me for game development so I was curious.

Thank you