Source
- URL: https://x.com/nicbarkeragain/status/1944913662499516737
- Author: Nic Barker (@nicbarkeragain)
- Posted: 2025-07-15 00:15:26
Thread
1/ @nicbarkeragain
I can’t help but have this feeling that we’re missing something in programming language design that will make SIMD much easier for the average programmer to use. And that it will likely seem simple in hindsight.
Branches: 2025-07-15-another_sentry-https-github-com-higherorderco-bend, 2025-07-15-sasuke___420-have-you-spent-time-writing-simd-algorithms-for, 2025-07-15-etscrivner-i-think-ispc-more-or-less-solved-this-and-in-a-c, 2025-07-15-quentinoeoeoe-i-agree-there-is-something-weird-with-simd, 2025-07-15-WorldGhostC2C-llm-baked-into-gcc-whos-only-job-is-making-things, 2025-07-15-TheBuzzSaw-c-makes-it-fairly-straightforward, 2025-07-15-jshurmer-i-agree, 2025-07-15-agmethod75-its-called-array-programming-fortran-has-been, 2025-07-15-Ed__dev-my-gamedev-head-just-wants-a-sort-of-game, 2025-07-15-etzikun-might-be-an-oversimplification-but-i-think-the, 2025-07-15-VPCOMPRESSB-intels-ispc, 2025-07-15-andrew_v10209-maybe-futhark-or-array-programming-theres-an, 2025-07-15-JebsSteve0x1-ffmpeg-thinks-otherwise, 2025-07-15-examachine-possible, 2025-07-15-sorek_UK-whats-wrong-with-using-inline-asm, 2025-07-15-AgileJebrim-the-answer-exists-its-called-ispc, 2025-07-15-slendidev-have-you-looked-at-odins-simd, 2025-07-15-meglio-the-average-programmer-you-mentioned-uses-oop-and, 2025-07-15-JakeLegendXIII-i-have-hope-that-this-is-true-but-damn-have-we, 2025-07-15-groby-so-fortran, 2025-07-15-dezren39-more-arrays, 2025-07-15-DeepknowledgeU-mojo-lang-has-simd-aware-data-types-and-makes-it, 2025-07-15-DanielJCollier-ispc, 2025-07-15-BigWhoopGames-reduced-instruction-sets-if-we-have-op-a-and-op-b, 2025-07-15-thejoephase-have-you-met-the-average-programmer, 2025-07-15-splizard-just-enable-arithmetic-operations-on-fixed-sized, 2025-07-15-dodobyte-openmp-does-good-enough-job-with-compiler-flags, 2025-07-15-salonen-i-think-we-need-a-system-visualizer-where-devs, 2025-07-15-SumErgoMonstro-have-you-ever-studied-apl-it-has-the-best-array, 2025-07-15-_Felipe-relational-model-columnar-data-sql-lands-itself, 2025-07-15-Zino2201_-perhaps-something-like-ispc-how-we-author-shaders, 2025-07-15-asdhuqiwuhdais-it-hasnt-been-stabilized-yet-but-rusts-portable, 2025-07-15-meoyawn-mojo-has-a-first-class-simd-support-afaik-but-ive, 2025-07-15-__morse-languages-that-have-comptime-also-have-wonderful, 2025-07-15-theogcb405-thread, 2025-07-16-themovercell-honestly-it-will-definitely-be-a-random-idea, 2025-07-16-geofflangdale-hmmn-i-feel-most-of-the-pl-design-community-who, 2025-07-16-2BitSalute-what-popped-into-my-head-is-languages-like-uiua, 2025-07-16-farre_x-but-is-it-really-that-hard-to-use-though-or-what, 2025-07-16-rtharston-ive-been-wondering-about-this-for-over-twenty
2/ @nicbarkeragain
It’s easy to think of structured programming (i.e. text based, with conditionals like if / else, loops, local variables, etc) as a simple and obvious innovation over the top of assembly, but I suspect if you were programming in 1950 it might not have seemed so obvious.
3/ @nicbarkeragain
Ironically it might take settling on a standard width among hardware vendors for us to be able to make reasonable headway there. I have no idea whether there are physical limitations to how wide we could go, or whether this would constitute a “pause” on hardware progress…
Branches: 2025-07-15-jon_roelofs-the-industry-is-trying-to-do-that-with-vector, 2025-07-15-TGodfather1984-128-bit-seems-to-be-pretty-widespread-so-it-might