Whilst I appreciate the advice that I shouldn't use glBegin... unfortunately posting a class that apparently doesn't use it doesn't really help me as it's way to complicated for me right now. I have no idea what the other alternatives are so I don't have a clue where to start looking in that class.

glBegin is how I've done all my OpenGL stuff and it's fine for what I'm doing at the moment. I know much of what I'm doing is less than optimal, but that aside, any advice on the question regarding shaders?