There are many possibilities. One is, build the thing. Build a pretend instruction set that is at a low level such that it would be targetable by any high-level language. Do a pass for LLVM that outputs to this. Then do all the gross garbage that up-translates this to
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @trishume
all the various shading languages. In the short term this is just another sucky shader language, but at least now it's at the right level of abstraction, so someone can do driver-level support in Linux, for example, then continue from there.
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @trishume
Intel are doing close to this. It's hard to see through the fog of uncertainty, but OneAPI is groping toward that goal. It's a bunch of tools and languages and so on with interop as the focus. Of course it's Yet More Standards in the short term. We'll see where it leads.
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An obvious tensions is between what Jon wants which is a super low level "assembly" that works on every GPU, and Intel's 50 years of experience doing this on CPUs where it's a gigantic pain in the arse.
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Replying to @tom_forsyth @trishume
It's a giant pain, that actually fucking works. I am able to write programs to that ISA and have high confidence that they will function correctly. I cannot say the same about Intel's fucking graphics drivers. So let's admit that some things work and some things do not.
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @trishume
I agree that you are happy to make it my problem.
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Replying to @tom_forsyth @trishume
But like, if there is only one solution that has so far been demonstrated to work, isn't that important information, regardless of the distribution of work that the solution implies?
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @trishume
Oh sure. And we are all very happy for you to come join Intel to do that work. For the greater good!
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Replying to @tom_forsyth @trishume
Dude I wouldn't last 10 minutes at Intel...
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Also no one would listen to us at Intel anyway. So if no one's going to listen to us, it seems better to be ignored on Twitter than ignored at Intel, because Twitter doesn't have mandatory employee orientations, meetings, etc. (Yet?)
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People listen, but you're ranting at the pointy exposed tip of the iceberg. That isn't the problem. Chip that off and a new point rolls to the surface. You should come dive into the depths and understand the fundamentals - they're fascinating!
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Ah yes, we can always count on Tom for the condescension.
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