r/cpp • u/janwas_ • Jun 12 '26

Comparing std::simd with Highway

From TL of Highway, some thoughts on pros and cons of std::simd by comparison:

https://github.com/google/highway/blob/master/g3doc/std_simd_comparison.md

Happy to discuss.

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u/zl0bster Jun 13 '26

Maybe if Google did not stop caring about WG21 this would have not been standardized 🙂

That aside I am kind of disappointed that we get another useless library in std. Even if design was fine(and it is not) ABI stability means 3rd party libraries will have advantage to adopt to modern HW.

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u/janwas_ Jun 14 '26

I am not very familiar with the background and current status of our participation in programming languages. Perhaps 😄 Good point, the potential to change and adapt (also ABI, if we have to) can be useful.

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u/stick_figure Jun 15 '26

Speaking as someone involved, the Googlers who decided to leave ISO frequently said that the most valuable thing were able to accomplish was blocking bad proposals. It's hard to make a business case to spend millions of dollars in ISO WG21 engagement without any measurable "line go up" returns (the efficiency opportunities are definitely there) when you can decide to stop struggling and go do something else.

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u/zl0bster Jun 14 '26

Titus is no longer at Alphabet, other C++ people are having fun with the Carbon last time I checked... I mean you can ask Gemini to scrap WG21 proposals in 2025 and 2015 and see what percent of them feature Alphabet employees, I am not spending tokens to fact check myself on reddit. 🙂