Re:Google removes SIMD.js support from Chromium
by pluma on Sunday June 04, 2017 @07:45AM
(#14480898)
This seemed shocking as I thought SIMD was still on track for inclusion in the next ECMAScript release as the proposal was on stage 3 the last time I checked (stage 4 means "it's in the spec", so stage 3 generally means "shipping ASAP"). I first thought Google had single-handedly decided to violate the spec.
So this isn't really "Google kills SIMD" but "Google kills implementation of dropped proposal".
It's still surprising to see proposals get canned this late into the process. The only other example of a late-stage retraction I can think of is Object.observe, which was originally expected to become part of the 2016 edition: https://esdiscuss.org/topic/an-update-on-object-observe
However it turns out the SIMD proposal has been dead since at least April: https://github.com/tc39/ecmascript_simd/commit/c6ca655dcbfc0...
So this isn't really "Google kills SIMD" but "Google kills implementation of dropped proposal".
It's still surprising to see proposals get canned this late into the process. The only other example of a late-stage retraction I can think of is Object.observe, which was originally expected to become part of the 2016 edition: https://esdiscuss.org/topic/an-update-on-object-observe