4 ms·

I am surprised there is no isolation schema for binaries. WASM may look lite and fast compared to Docker, but its still painfully slow compared to AVX or Neon e

I am surprised there is no isolation schema for binaries. WASM may look lite and fast compared to Docker, but its still painfully slow compared to AVX or Neon enabled assembly. We went from VMs to Containers. From Containers to WASM. Now, I guess, we just need to learn how to properly isolate simple binaries.

staticassertion 5y ago
> Now, I guess, we just need to learn how to properly isolate simple binaries. I think unikernels are appealing as a solution. Every program is "the operating system" running in something like Firecracker on a baremetal host.
Findecanor 5y ago
There is a fixed-width SIMD extension though. It conforms to a common subset of instructions with similar semantics in SSE/AVX and the Neons.
duskwuff 5y ago
> [WASM is] still painfully slow compared to AVX or Neon enabled assembly. There's an open proposal to add SIMD intrinsics to WASM. https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/issues/1 https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/issues/1
- charcircuit 5y ago
  That's an issue from 2018 with no replies to it.
  - azakai 5y ago
    For current status ("phase 3" as that link says is maybe not obvious enough), there is a solid spec and multiple implementations, see the "Fixed-width SIMD" line here: https://webassembly.org/roadmap/ https://webassembly.org/roadmap/ And here is an overview of this spec: https://github.com/WebAssembly/simd/blob/master/proposals/simd/SIMD.md https://github.com/WebAssembly/simd/blob/master/proposals/si...
- the_duke 5y ago
  The fixed width SIMD proposal was standardized a while ago and is available in quite a few runtimes. https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/blob/main/finished-proposals.md https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/blob/main/finished-...
- ashvardanian 5y ago
  Yeah, saw it, but never tried. Java, C# and other high level languages have libraries for basic SIMD operations. It's completely different world from manually invoking intrinsics in C or writing raw assembly. I am wondering where WASM will land. Visually it's definitely not Assembly. It actually looks more like Python than C. I guess my subjective assumptions are based entirely on looks. Will have to try it for smth, will definitely share afterwards :)

staticassertion 5y ago

> Now, I guess, we just need to learn how to properly isolate simple binaries. I think unikernels are appealing as a solution. Every program is "the operating system" running in something like Firecracker on a baremetal host.

Findecanor 5y ago

There is a fixed-width SIMD extension though. It conforms to a common subset of instructions with similar semantics in SSE/AVX and the Neons.

duskwuff 5y ago

> [WASM is] still painfully slow compared to AVX or Neon enabled assembly. There's an open proposal to add SIMD intrinsics to WASM. https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/issues/1 https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/issues/1

charcircuit 5y ago
That's an issue from 2018 with no replies to it.
- azakai 5y ago
  For current status ("phase 3" as that link says is maybe not obvious enough), there is a solid spec and multiple implementations, see the "Fixed-width SIMD" line here: https://webassembly.org/roadmap/ https://webassembly.org/roadmap/ And here is an overview of this spec: https://github.com/WebAssembly/simd/blob/master/proposals/simd/SIMD.md https://github.com/WebAssembly/simd/blob/master/proposals/si...
the_duke 5y ago
The fixed width SIMD proposal was standardized a while ago and is available in quite a few runtimes. https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/blob/main/finished-proposals.md https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/blob/main/finished-...
ashvardanian 5y ago
Yeah, saw it, but never tried. Java, C# and other high level languages have libraries for basic SIMD operations. It's completely different world from manually invoking intrinsics in C or writing raw assembly. I am wondering where WASM will land. Visually it's definitely not Assembly. It actually looks more like Python than C. I guess my subjective assumptions are based entirely on looks. Will have to try it for smth, will definitely share afterwards :)