Biggest Issue with D - Definition and Versioning

[Martin Nowak]

On Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:31:14 +0100, Andrei Alexandrescu  
<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:

> On 1/14/12 9:06 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> On Saturday, January 14, 2012 20:54:55 Michel Fortin wrote:
>>> Still, Walter perfectly has the right to decide on what he wants to
>>> work. I understand that he saw implementing SIMD as an interesting
>>> challenge, and if working on SIMD keeps things interesting for him,
>>> that can only be great.
>>
>> Sure. I can understand why the most important thing to work  on might  
>> not be
>> the most interesting thing to work on. And Walter certainly has the  
>> right to
>> work on whatever he wants to work on.
>
> Exactly and perfectly right. To add to that, with my limited time, I can  
> hardly afford to work on stuff that isn't fun (although lately I've done  
> some of it - e.g. I'm not a web designer). There comes a point, however,  
> when we need to decide whether our main priority is having fun or making  
> D successful.
>
> In the latter case:
>
> 1. SIMD is not the top of the list. Two weeks ago it wasn't _on_ the  
> list. Now it's like the last 'copter outta Saigon.
>
> 2. We haven't identified game designers as a core market, and one that's  
> more important than e.g. general purpose programmers who need the like  
> of working qualifiers, multithreading, and shared libraries.
>
> 3. There was never a promise or even a mention that we'll deliver SIMD.  
> We virtually promise we deliver threads and expressive qualifiers, and  
> there's still work to do on that.
>
> 4. There was broad agreement that the main foci going forward would be  
> quality, expressive qualifiers, shared libraries, Phobos work, and  
> publicizing the language. We can't work with and publicize D's awesome  
> concurrency design if parts of it aren't implemented.
>
> 5. The SIMD work has _zero_ acceleration on existing code; it only  
> allows experts to write non-portable code that uses SIMD instructions.  
> Updating to the next release of dmd has zero SIMD-related benefit to  
> statistically our entire user base.
>
> Walter and I spend hours on the phone discussing strategies and tactics  
> to make D more successful. And then comes this binge. Doing anything on  
> SIMD now is a mistake that I am sorry I was unable to stop. About the  
> only thing that's good about it all is that it'll be over soon.
>
>
> Andrei

This is a huge selling point.
     float4 v1,v2,v3;
     v1 = v2;
     v1 = v2 + v3;
     v1 = v2 - v3;
     v1 = v2 * v3;
     v1 = v2 / v3;

Considering the recent switch to XMM it was just opportune to do
this now rather than later. Context switches are expensive.

martin