Oh, hi :) I like your unroller idea, it can simplify user code and is quite general.
Agree about autovectorization. It is not even a true programming model, because we have only limited ability to influence results.
Also agree std::simd is far too limited (something like 50 ops, mostly the straightforward ones, vs >200 for Highway), and difficult to change/extend within the ISO process.
It is very difficult to get widespread traction with a new language, even given LLVM. Mojo, Carbon, Zig are also already potentially helpful.
I do believe a library approach (and in particular Highway, because considerable effort is required to maintain support for so many targets/compiler versions and AFAICS nothing else properly supports RISC-V and SVE) is the way to go for the next 5 years. Major compiler update cycles are something like 1.5-2 years and I don't think there will be a fundamental shift anytime soon towards RL, for example. After those 5 years, the future remains to be written :)
As to missing features: we are happy to add ops whenever there is sizable benefit for some app, and it doesn't hurt other targets. For mixed-type gather, x86 is the only platform that does this, so encouraging its use would pessimize other platforms. And I think apps can easily promote/demote their indices to match the data size. But always happy to discuss via Github issues :)
Agree about autovectorization. It is not even a true programming model, because we have only limited ability to influence results.
Also agree std::simd is far too limited (something like 50 ops, mostly the straightforward ones, vs >200 for Highway), and difficult to change/extend within the ISO process.
It is very difficult to get widespread traction with a new language, even given LLVM. Mojo, Carbon, Zig are also already potentially helpful.
I do believe a library approach (and in particular Highway, because considerable effort is required to maintain support for so many targets/compiler versions and AFAICS nothing else properly supports RISC-V and SVE) is the way to go for the next 5 years. Major compiler update cycles are something like 1.5-2 years and I don't think there will be a fundamental shift anytime soon towards RL, for example. After those 5 years, the future remains to be written :)
As to missing features: we are happy to add ops whenever there is sizable benefit for some app, and it doesn't hurt other targets. For mixed-type gather, x86 is the only platform that does this, so encouraging its use would pessimize other platforms. And I think apps can easily promote/demote their indices to match the data size. But always happy to discuss via Github issues :)