packed_simd versus portable-simd? (This one is now std::simd!)

[fzyzcjy]

Hi thanks for the Rust language and the two libraries! I wonder which one should I use now? They seems to have similar features and one even links to the other.

[Lokathor]

The intent is to move to portable-simd. It's "soon" going to be in the standard library in Nightly even.

packed_simd is the legacy API that is no longer developed.

[fzyzcjy]

Ok so I guess I should stick to portable-simd. Thanks!

[workingjubilee]

This crate is now no longer truly a crate: It is a module in nightly, and can be used via

#![feature(portable_simd)]
use std::simd::f32x4;

[fzyzcjy]

@workingjubilee Congrats! I wonder whether it is useable in production environments? (despite the name "nightly" - since I know sometimes a nightly feature is quite stable)

[calebzulawski]

I would suggest against it, but I don't think it would be any worse than using packed_simd. The API is subject to change, though.

[workingjubilee]

...Yeah uh... I appreciate your vote of confidence, but I would Probably Not. 😄
It's probably fine for simple integer arithmetic, but I can't say anything about more than that.

[fzyzcjy]

Thank you!