"And I point it out because even SIMD can have conditional branching (using the CPU's branch predictor.)" This doesn't sound correct to me, but perhaps I'm mis

"And I point it out because even SIMD can have conditional branching (using the CPU's branch predictor.)" This doesn't sound correct to me, but perhaps I'm missing something? I can't see how the branch predictor is relevant here. Can you explain in more detail? "That's an understatement. It complicates the implementation significantly. Parallel-oriented (?) programming is quite hard by itself without all this." How does this complicate it? You don't have to implement it yourself. If you're coding in CUDA, OpenCL or any of the common shading languages, then you write if-statements just as you would in C and it does the right thing. Honestly, the only concern is the performance degradation you get. "That phrasing can carry an implied personal attack" There was none intended. I was hoping that would make it sound helpful but I guess it didn't work. Text can be a tricky medium. Sorry.