Ray tracer without OpenGL is painful...

For my 361 computer graphic course, we were asked to implement a ray tracer without the help of OpenGL. Ray tracing is a technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light through pixels in an image plane and simulating the effects of its encounters with virtual objects(from Wikipedia). Drawing three spheres took me 2 whole day and finishing the whole assignment took me 5 days(which occupied all of my long weekend). Now I really appreciate those programmers who make game. It really is a difficult and tiring task. Just a while ago I was thinking maybe I should get into game development, now I totally give up. It just...not my style...