I strongly dislike CUDA. Once you have allowed that proprietary cr*p into your C++ codebase, it is very hard to get rid, and you end up with code that is either tied to a single vendor or an #ifdef hell, probably both.
The best way to program GPUs is face up to the reality that they are not the same machine as the CPU, write your kernels in separate files, and launch them manually, like in Metal, OpenCL, and D3D12, etc.
These days we even have DSLs like Triton that make kernel writing much more ergonomic than anything you would hope to achieve in Rust.
Having also played with Metal and WebGPU (at least years ago), I would say that CUDA is, amazingly, the best GPGPU API we have. Do I wish we had an open source parallel programming language as good or better than it? Yes. But asymmetrically hating on CUDA like this is how we continue to lag behind it in UX.
> The best way to program GPUs is face up to the reality that they are not the same machine as the CPU, write your kernels in separate files, and launch them manually
Not to mention that this is a completely sane way to use CUDA as well.
I know it's not the same thing because proprietary vs open software it's way less important but, generally if you are not ideologically against something you can easily follow the stream and do lot of nefarious actions, especially if the action has enough degrees of separations from the actual nefast outcome.
jacobgorm · · focus · HN ↗
The best way to program GPUs is face up to the reality that they are not the same machine as the CPU, write your kernels in separate files, and launch them manually, like in Metal, OpenCL, and D3D12, etc. These days we even have DSLs like Triton that make kernel writing much more ergonomic than anything you would hope to achieve in Rust.
winwang · · focus · HN ↗
> The best way to program GPUs is face up to the reality that they are not the same machine as the CPU, write your kernels in separate files, and launch them manually
Not to mention that this is a completely sane way to use CUDA as well.
pjmlp · · focus · HN ↗
Turns out when one isn't ideologically against something they aren't willing to put up with a lesser experience just for the cause.
darkwater · · focus · HN ↗