☂️ Initial internal feedback #2213

Here's some feedback that one of the internal teams had when starting out with WGSL:

1. Explicit post-fix requirements: It’s a bit surprising to have to stick post-fix modifiers on so many numbers in order to get simple operations to work: vert.VertexIndex % 3u == 0u Requiring integral-valued float literals to have .0 seems gratuitous #739
2. Lack of promotion to floating point: It's a bit weird to also have to explicitly add .0 to numbers to make them floating point: vec4<f32>(1, 0, 0, 1) must be vec4<f32>(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0) Requiring integral-valued float literals to have .0 seems gratuitous #739
3. Post-fix prohibitions: It's even weird to be prohibited from point a f at the back of floating given the above requirements. It's not obvious how doubles would be supported. Allow f suffix for float literals #2210
4. Explicit brace requirements on 1-liners: Surprising. Consider not requiring braces in some situations #2211
5. elseif instead of else if: Okay, but why? Consider replacing elseif with else if #2212

Summary: Shaders authors expect a C-like syntax, even Metal being C++ like still supports C style syntax. WGSL is surprising in that it seems to be neither fully C-style nor C++-style.

Update

6. C-style casts don't work: output.position.x = (float)(vert.VertexID / 2u) * 4.0 - 1.0; C-style casts #2220