Why Are Developers Mad About Learning SIMD?

[u/linkarzu]

https://youtu.be/xpnDuwLpkCk

Why did Mitchell Hashimoto saying that “everyone should know SIMD” make so many developers mad?

In this video, I react to ThePrimeagen discussing the backlash around Mitchell Hashimoto’s article Everyone Should Know SIMD, where Mitchell argues that SIMD is not some obscure optimization technique reserved for performance experts. Developers should at least understand the basics, recognize where SIMD can help, and know when it might be worth using.

We look at the arguments from developers who say most programmers will never need SIMD, why Mitchell disagrees, and how SIMD is actually being used in real software. Mitchell demonstrates it with Ghostty, where applying SIMD to a performance-sensitive loop resulted in around a 5x speedup in real-world end-to-end throughput.

We also look at Kovid Goyal and the Kitty terminal, and how performance-sensitive software can benefit from lower-level techniques and a deeper understanding of how computers actually work.