The Safari API is severely lacking relative to Chrome/Firefox. It would be great if Apple would spend some time getting Safari up to parity so devs can create a more consistent user experience for their browser.
Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
361–370 of 650 posts
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making a new standard is inevitable. That's not really a choice. Even if the web platform directly replicated one of the existing APIs, you still have to explain how it binds to JavaScript, as well as memory and GPU resource management details. So bringing a modern graphics API to the web will inevitably create a new standard. The question then is whether to try to clone one of the native-level APIs, or make somethin…
This brings another question. Would it be better given the likely use cases for WebGPU to be designed as a WebAssembly only API?
WebAssembly doesn't currently have a way to expose APIs to it directly. It only has an interface to call JavaScript.
Maybe that will change, but blocking on a major new WebAssembly feature did not seem wise.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#363Go for it! I would love to see more focus on browser-based what-the-future-of-code-may-look-like. That said, I don't think that 3D interfaces are the only kinds that need good language / representation. Not that the rules should be really rigid, but I think that if we pursue the notion of reversely symmetric UI-languages we can make a lot of progress. Imagine that you have a 3D scene, what is the minimal language you…
Is this some kind of procedurally generated programming related nonsense?
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One system for everything else and one system for Apple. This seems to have worked out pretty well for innovation in the mobile OS market, no?
Yes, for Apple... For the consumer? I don't think so. As a consumer, the mobile device market is a walled garden. Are apps compatible between platforms? Do you have control over your hardware? Can you choose what software you run on your own device?
> Are apps compatible between platforms
That would be an awful experience for the consumers, UI/UX-wise.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
We haven't yet solved all the security problems, but we're aware of and thinking about them. We expect threadsafety, memory safety, data validation, and memory protection for the shader language to be the big issues.
Why are you proposing a new standard when you are still thinking about security?
Thoroughly solving the security problems will require more eyes on it than just ours. Which is why we're proposing a starting point for a standard, and a process to work on it, not an endpoint.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
This shows, that this idea wasn't thought through enough. And coming from Apple, it raises a concern naturally. These things should have solid foundations from the start.
> This shows, that this idea wasn't thought through enough. Isn't this the way you're supposed to do open source? Post code early and often for comments? It seems like a ridiculous requirement that to show a sketch of what they think a web API should look like for next generation 3-D graphics they should have to design an entire shader language that's different from the one they already have. It's just a placeholder.…
MSL is a non starter, because it's closed. Making a project from scratch that invites collaboration, requires thinking about such issues in advance and having them at the very foundation. That's my whole point. Failure to do it, is not an encouraging sign.
> should have to design an entire shader language that's different from the one they already have.
They don't need to design a new language - take existing open one and use it.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
This brings another question. Would it be better given the likely use cases for WebGPU to be designed as a WebAssembly only API?
WebAssembly doesn't currently have a way to expose APIs to it directly. It only has an interface to call JavaScript. Maybe that will change, but blocking on a major new WebAssembly feature did not seem wise.
Oh. I didn't know that.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's likely there will be a need for a C++-level meta-API that can work on top of Vulkan, D3D and Metal. There's already been discussion of making such a thing. It would be nice if that could be exposed to WebAssembly via Emscripten.
But to what degree might this 'meta-API' be different than WebGPU/JS? Might this effort effectively end up creating two, new APIs, each with different vocabularies (one for JS, another for C or C++)?
I mean, that's going to happen anyway.
The whole point of Vulkan/Metal/DX12 is that since GPUs have their own MMUs it's totally OK to seg fault your own process from the GPU side. You just crash your process, but you don't take down the system.
That line of thinking doesn't really translate well to a JS API.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So, if a specification came out of this, then it would not be patent encumbered; at least not by any patents held by Apple. So how come they didn't manage to have the same idea for touch events? > Everyone supporting Vulcan would be nice, but a standardised, patent-free, cross-platform, web-enabled, low-level GPU API would still be a major step forward. I'd say design and its roots matter. If they base it off Metal…
> If Apple want to help, let them base WebGPU on Vulcan. Literally the whole point of the WG is to design a low level GPU api specifically for the web with security etc in mind (i.e. not just "give javascript direct access to the GPU" like Google's WebUSB and WebBluetooth proposals) that can be backed by whatever GPU library is on the platform: for Window's that's DirectX (do you really want a web app to tell you tha…
> do you really want a web app to tell you that you need to update your GPU drivers to get support for Vulkan
Why wouldn't you want to do it? Same can happen when you install some non Web application that requires it (games / VR etc.). I don't see how Web or non Web makes any difference. If you don't have up to date graphics drivers, problems are inevitable anyway, and you better fix that. If Web application gracefully warns you about it, instead of crashing - all the better.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Apple want to help, let them base WebGPU on Vulcan. Literally the whole point of the WG is to design a low level GPU api specifically for the web with security etc in mind (i.e. not just "give javascript direct access to the GPU" like Google's WebUSB and WebBluetooth proposals) that can be backed by whatever GPU library is on the platform: for Window's that's DirectX (do you really want a web app to tell you tha…
> do you really want a web app to tell you that you need to update your GPU drivers to get support for Vulkan Why wouldn't you want to do it? Same can happen when you install some non Web application that requires it (games / VR etc.). I don't see how Web or non Web makes any difference. If you don't have up to date graphics drivers, problems are inevitable anyway, and you better fix that. If Web application graceful…
> Why wouldn't you want to do it?
Are you fucking serious? The web is always being trumpeted as "works everywhere". But now you want to tie the web to specific GPU drivers?
> Same can happen when you install some non Web application that requires it (games?)
You can use the web on a lot of devices that you can't install local applications on.
> I don't see how Web or non Web makes any difference
Perhaps you should look into that, because problems are inevitable and you better fix that.