Re: Binary vs Text

Framing it as binary vs. text is in my opinion the wrong characterization.
It's more about a programming language as text (or whatever format) vs. an
intermediate machine independent low level bytecode that's eliminating much
of the complexity/optimizations you'd have to apply to a programming
language before you can translate it to something the GPU understands
(usually such an intermediate low level bytecode format) that it then
translates to GPU native code.

>From WebGL we've learned several things about presenting the driver with
text:

   1. Some intermediate bytecode compilers such as the one shipped with
   Direct3D are performing badly
   2. If the text can be passed to the driver directly (as is the case with
   OpenGL backends for instance), those compilers too may perform badly
   3. Since every GPU vendor needs to implement a full parser/compiler
   toolchain, it bloats the driver and introduces interpretation ambiguity
   where some constructs are not reliably translated to GPU code, and so the
   emitter of source (the browser) needs to account for a large number of
   workarounds to homogenize these unfixed issues in drivers.

It'd be desirable to avoid these effects and eliminate a constant source of
frustration for graphics programmers. APIs such as Vulkan have recognized
this issue and introduced a machine independent low level intermediary
bytecode format that is intended to be quick to load onto the GPU and
leaves little room for ambiguity of interpretation or complexity of
implementation on the drivers part.

On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 7:58 AM Myles C. Maxfield <mmaxfield@apple.com>
wrote:

> Hi!
>
> When we were discussing WebGPU today, the issue of binary vs text was
> raised. We are confused at the viewpoint that binary languages on the Web
> are inherently safer and more portable than text ones. All of our browsers
> accept HTML, CSS, JavaScript, binary image formats, binary font files,
> GLSL, and WebAssembly, and so we don’t understand how our teams came to
> opposite conclusions given similar circumstances.
>
> Can you describe the reasons for this viewpoint (as specifically as
> possible, preferably)? We’d like to better understand the reasoning.
>
> Thanks,
> Myles
>