Re: Decision Record?

Thanks, Kai. That doc is super helpful!

I have been thinking of putting together a sort of "WebGPU gotchas" doc of things that surprised me coming from WebGL and how I addressed them. I can share that with the group when I get around to writing it.

Tarek Sherif
http://tareksherif.net/

On Thursday, February 15th, 2024 at 1:25 PM, Kai Ninomiya <kainino@google.com> wrote:

> For some aspects of the API - limits and a few bits of terminology - we've been slowly maintaining this doc: https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/correspondence/
> Ideally I'd like to have more details about different features too. The question about generating mipmaps, for example, could definitely be answered there - it's something in some other APIs that has no correspondence in WebGPU.
> The timestamp one is unfortunately still in the air with [#3952](https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/issues/3952), but that shouldn't prevent us from documenting it, especially since it's a limitation compared to some other APIs (at least on hardware where more flexible timestamps have valid behavior).
>
> That said, documenting all this history is a bunch of work, and the spec editors have barely had time for fixing problems in the actual spec. I find a lot of stuff by searching the GitHub tracker, but sometimes it doesn't work because we've renamed things over and over again through the history of the project. FWIW Google does a pretty good job indexing it - about 25% of the time I try to Google a question about how something works in Vulkan, D3D12, or Metal, our own corresponding gpuweb issue comes up :)
>
> Contributions to documenting this history would be welcome, either in that doc or on external sites. Either way it's useful to developers!
>
> -Kai (he/they)
>
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 8:12 PM Dominic Cerisano <dcerisano@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You seem to have already found the decision records - the github gpuweb Closed Issue and Closed PR records.
>> You are also correct that the working group meeting minutes provide more insight into decision making processes behind these decision records.
>> There are also Matrix groups, WC3 meetings and Office Hours where questions can be asked (using comments on Google Meet).
>>
>> Being somewhat familiar with the process, be assured that there have been a tremendous amount of decisions and supporting detail recorded. I have suggested training an LLM with all this material to be able to answer adhoc questions and even generate code.
>>
>> Dominic Cerisano
>>
>> dcerisano@gmail.com
>>
>> NOTICE: Confidential message which may be privileged. Unauthorized use/disclosure prohibited.
>> AVIS : Message confidentiel dont le contenu peut être privilégié. Utilisation/divulgation interdites sans permission.
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 3:02 AM Tarek Sherif <tareksherif@pm.me> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> First off, just want to say great work with the spec. I've been experimenting with WebGPU more lately, and it's a HUGE ergonomics upgrade from WebGL. I'm finding it a joy to use (and I don't think I've ever said that about a graphics API).
>>>
>>> One thing I've found challenging as I'm on-boarding to WebGPU is understanding why some functionality I'm used to in WebGL doesn't exist in the new API. Recent examples:
>>>
>>> - Why can't the API generate mipmaps for me? Found the answer [here](https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/issues/386).
>>> - My can't I time a set of arbitrary commands on the GPU? Found answers [here](https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/issues/2046) and [here](https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/wiki/GPU-Web-2023-11-08#problem-measuring-time-deltas-with-writetimestamp-3952).
>>>
>>> As you can see, the answers I wanted are available, but can be obscure and require parsing long conversations. I'm wondering if the working group would consider maintaining a sort of decision record or FAQ of more substantial or controversial departures from WebGL and the reasoning behind them, maybe even just with links out to relevant meeting minutes or GitHub issues. I've found the [WebGPU from WebGL](https://webgpufundamentals.org/webgpu/lessons/webgpu-from-webgl.html) article on WebGPU Fundamentals extremely helpful as a starting point, but it doesn't provide reasons for the differences, which I think are valuable to anyone who wants to be a serious practitioner. I also feel a document like that could be of immense value to the real-time graphics community as a whole, since your research seems to be uncovering a lot of interesting details about the intersection of the current set of native graphics APIs.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Tarek Sherif
>>> http://tareksherif.net/