Rust wgpu now has a
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/117338324202161763
@eniko thanks.
and yeah, we need a kernel. one person can't write a kernel. it's not a matter of scope. it's a matter of you have to test more hardware configurations than one person can get in a private residence. we need that kernel handled by an *institution*.
the problem with freedos is if we want to make *games* then probably at some point we want access to sound and video. and if you want your game to render by any method other than CPU-on-framebuffer sound and video become Very Hard.
@mcc @eniko I sometimes wonder if we need so many hardware configurations, especially for personal devices. We could do well with some stability within a paired down feature set, even if it's not the most "powerful". A lot of the product differentiation out there is just capitalists trying to eat each other's lunch.
What's the most minimal GPU you'd find acceptable?
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Servo rests atop wgpu. Therefore, if my OS's entire GUI layer is servo, and I believe that implementing webgpu is easier than implementing vulkan, I can increase my chances of writing a working video-acceleration driver if I simplify it so *the driver supplies wgpu*, instead of trying to support the full scope of DRI/DRM or OpenGL/Vulkan or whatever this entails.
Two things I want, in both cases wgpu provides a critical, project-saving step.
And oh, I think wgpu might be slop now. Never mind!
@mcc I didn't quite follow the whole thread, but I think it's worth clarifying that wgpu is only used in Servo to implement webgpu, which is an optional feature. Servo rests atop webrender instead.
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@mcc @eniko I sometimes wonder if we need so many hardware configurations, especially for personal devices. We could do well with some stability within a paired down feature set, even if it's not the most "powerful". A lot of the product differentiation out there is just capitalists trying to eat each other's lunch.
What's the most minimal GPU you'd find acceptable?
@thankfulmachine @eniko last time I perceived a computer being specifically better than the computer I had before it was like, 2009, so let's say about as powerful as a standard 2009 desktop GPU? I'd also probably be fine to go back to 2001 or 2003. But I need some degree of shader support
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@mcc I didn't quite follow the whole thread, but I think it's worth clarifying that wgpu is only used in Servo to implement webgpu, which is an optional feature. Servo rests atop webrender instead.
@jdm_ that's very good to know, however, all the rust software *I* wrote in the last four or so years was written atop wgpu, and this was the entirety of my plan for running my software inside servo, if my wacky "ChromeOS but Servo" idea came to fruition
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@jdm_ that's very good to know, however, all the rust software *I* wrote in the last four or so years was written atop wgpu, and this was the entirety of my plan for running my software inside servo, if my wacky "ChromeOS but Servo" idea came to fruition
@mcc Ah, yeah, That would be a sticking point
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@ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @decay @amarioguy the frustrating thing is, (as we were briefly privately discussing), at some point they did!
and then they (possibly a different group of "they"?) decided to change their minds
@r @ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @amarioguy the capitalist class successfully broke the strong labor and revolutionary socialist movements that they were bulwarking against in the first place and had no more reason not to tighten the noose, same as the collapse of the welfare state, same as why public healthcare is being dismantled outside the US and so on
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@r @ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @amarioguy the capitalist class successfully broke the strong labor and revolutionary socialist movements that they were bulwarking against in the first place and had no more reason not to tighten the noose, same as the collapse of the welfare state, same as why public healthcare is being dismantled outside the US and so on
@decay @r @MaddieM4 @mcc @amarioguy with that said, though, there is an awful lot of educated, pro-labor, pro-positive-change community in existence right this moment. the factors that gave rise to it may be gone, we can't count on such a thing being around forever, but we as people still exist, in this moment.
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@ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @decay @amarioguy on this note, it's an absolute shame that "pre-calculus" in the USA K-12 "traditional" math pathway is such a poorly-implemented clusterfuck
for those not familiar, as far as i can tell, this was *supposed to be* a wrap-up of elementary algebra and *the bridge* into the "real math" mode of thinking (i.e. the "correct" blend of formalisms, beauty, discovery, abstractions, etc. that mathematicians actually use)
instead, it typically turns into a poorly-motivated grab-bag of topics that aren't clearly "calculus" but that they couldn't fit anywhere else
a bunch of the "i wish i knew the math needed to do X" i've seen where X is something computer+art-ish doesn't actually require much beyond this (okay, probably some extra discrete math bits because the USA curriculum just refuses to add any of that)
@r @ireneista @mcc @decay @amarioguy You just gave me flashbacks to being extremely bitter and feeling helpless in precalc, because I actually knew calculus! I learned it for game engine stuff, because I wanted to make games! Failing precalc while knowing calculus feels so so bad and makes you wonder how you could be this kind of broken.
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@r @ireneista @mcc @decay @amarioguy You just gave me flashbacks to being extremely bitter and feeling helpless in precalc, because I actually knew calculus! I learned it for game engine stuff, because I wanted to make games! Failing precalc while knowing calculus feels so so bad and makes you wonder how you could be this kind of broken.
@MaddieM4 @r @mcc @decay @amarioguy it's the schools to blame, and the policymakers who decided it should be that way. it was never your fault.
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@mcc @MaddieM4 The original SPIR was a fork of LLVM IR. SPIR-V is more or less "GLSL encoded as an SSA-based VM bytecode". @decay @riley @ireneista @amarioguy
@mcc @MaddieM4 @ireneista This was done for a couple reasons. One is that LLVM IR is not actually a stable target, it is ultimately an implementation detail of LLVM and changes as LLVM changes so you have to follow upstream LLVM or maintain your ancient version forever. Which is not desirable in a standard interchange format. The other is that LLVM isn't really a good fit for GPU code for a number of reasons, and was even less of a good fit at the time.
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@MaddieM4 @r @mcc @decay @amarioguy it's the schools to blame, and the policymakers who decided it should be that way. it was never your fault.
@ireneista @r @mcc @decay @amarioguy thank you, really. I did get there on my own in the end, but I wish so badly I could tell that to teenage Maddie. Among other sage advice that would have saved me a lot of heartache.
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@ireneista @r @mcc @decay @amarioguy thank you, really. I did get there on my own in the end, but I wish so badly I could tell that to teenage Maddie. Among other sage advice that would have saved me a lot of heartache.
@MaddieM4 @r @mcc @decay @amarioguy for sure.
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@ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @decay @amarioguy on this note, it's an absolute shame that "pre-calculus" in the USA K-12 "traditional" math pathway is such a poorly-implemented clusterfuck
for those not familiar, as far as i can tell, this was *supposed to be* a wrap-up of elementary algebra and *the bridge* into the "real math" mode of thinking (i.e. the "correct" blend of formalisms, beauty, discovery, abstractions, etc. that mathematicians actually use)
instead, it typically turns into a poorly-motivated grab-bag of topics that aren't clearly "calculus" but that they couldn't fit anywhere else
a bunch of the "i wish i knew the math needed to do X" i've seen where X is something computer+art-ish doesn't actually require much beyond this (okay, probably some extra discrete math bits because the USA curriculum just refuses to add any of that)
@r @ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @decay @amarioguy
yeah, i ended up having a lot of pre-calc students drop into tutoring hours in college, and i could see how it was stuff you needed to know for calculus (maybe they did a bit better job of that),
but a lot of students were just taking it as a sole math requirement, the last math class they'll ever take, either because they didn't place into calculus or didn't want to take calculus ... and it really was not a good fit for that purpose. i felt sorry for those students.
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@r @ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @decay @amarioguy
yeah, i ended up having a lot of pre-calc students drop into tutoring hours in college, and i could see how it was stuff you needed to know for calculus (maybe they did a bit better job of that),
but a lot of students were just taking it as a sole math requirement, the last math class they'll ever take, either because they didn't place into calculus or didn't want to take calculus ... and it really was not a good fit for that purpose. i felt sorry for those students.
@monoidmusician @ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @decay @amarioguy i... outright forgor that college-level precalculus even exists. that sounds like it'd be an *even bigger* design-by-committee too-many-competing-interests clusterfuck
bit of a self-dox, but somebody really should replace it with a "The Beauty and Joy of Mathematics"
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@amarioguy @MaddieM4 @ireneista @mcc @decay ... did i just accidentally stumble into a much bigger problem/rabbit-hole than i expected?
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@amarioguy @MaddieM4 @ireneista @mcc @decay ... did i just accidentally stumble into a much bigger problem/rabbit-hole than i expected?
@amarioguy @MaddieM4 @ireneista @mcc @decay istg *every* time the american traditional math pathway has a jump in abstractness and/or complexity, some portion of students get traumatized for life and give up on math forever
there's the well-known tropes of "fractions" ("pieces of a whole" and "ratios" --> division as a general operation), "negatives" (inverse operations), and "algebra" (symbols)
but i didn't realize this *continued*
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@monoidmusician @ireneista @MaddieM4 @mcc @decay @amarioguy i... outright forgor that college-level precalculus even exists. that sounds like it'd be an *even bigger* design-by-committee too-many-competing-interests clusterfuck
bit of a self-dox, but somebody really should replace it with a "The Beauty and Joy of Mathematics"
yeah, I could imagine it's like that at other places. I went to a small liberal arts college (Bard College), and professors were given a lot of latitude and trust to teach even core courses their way, I think, even if general requirements are agreed upon.
there are some interesting courses for non-majors. I can find “Mathematics and Politics” and “Games of Chance” listed. Lauren Rose focuses on games/puzzles, stuff like Rubiks cubes and Set and generalizations.
sometimes the courses for non-majors are one-offs. I think there was a more conceptual course taught one semester, focusing on the larger picture like what are proofs and why do we care. I don't know any details or how it did.
but I agree. The Beauty and Joy of Mathematics needs to be a standard course
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yeah, I could imagine it's like that at other places. I went to a small liberal arts college (Bard College), and professors were given a lot of latitude and trust to teach even core courses their way, I think, even if general requirements are agreed upon.
there are some interesting courses for non-majors. I can find “Mathematics and Politics” and “Games of Chance” listed. Lauren Rose focuses on games/puzzles, stuff like Rubiks cubes and Set and generalizations.
sometimes the courses for non-majors are one-offs. I think there was a more conceptual course taught one semester, focusing on the larger picture like what are proofs and why do we care. I don't know any details or how it did.
but I agree. The Beauty and Joy of Mathematics needs to be a standard course
@monoidmusician @ireneista @MaddieM4 oooh, those all sound like pretty fun ideas
but yeah, this ought to be gathered into something repeatable
i wonder if there's a particular reason why the US doesn't really like to introduce discrete mathematics? (is this part of the same cold war math push that gave us much of the rest?)
since that's a *major* feature of recreational mathematics, puzzles and games, *and computing*
