In face there is no real use case for this. So, before we had shaders, we used hand-written SIMD to perform those calculations as quickly as possible. Even wit

In face there is no real use case for this. So, before we had shaders, we used hand-written SIMD to perform those calculations as quickly as possible. Even with shaders available, there are broad categories of numerical work where you can't justify the expense of putting things out on a GPU but you still want them to be done quickly. Good examples of this are basic vector arithmetic, which is useful for graphics and scene management and physics, or certain types of hashing, or anything else. In some magical future land where sufficiently advanced compilers drop out of trees, maybe you have a point--but this is the web, son, and we're as quick and dirty as you can get.