My recommendations for Vello in 2024 (WIP)

recommendations_vello.md

My recommendations for Vello in 2024

Basic Documentation:

• Write a main function.
• Point to the SceneBuilder types.

All the following come after shipping 0.1.

• Implement WebGL compatibility

  • ???

• Make the SceneBuilder API closer to PostScript/WebCanvas, by adding pushTransform and popTransform methods and matching them in the encoding.

• Re-structure the Vello repository:

  • Move Scene/SceneFragment/SceneBuilder into vello-encoding.
  • Rename vello-encoding to vello-core
  • Split out the wgpu backend into a vello-wgpu crate.

• Improve Vello's documentation

  • Add basic example
  • Improve vello architecture diagram

• Document Vello's limits and guarantees:

  • What are the maximum sizes you can send it?
  • What happens if you go over these sizes?
  • What happens if you send NaNs?
  • What happens if you send invalid indices, unmatched push/pops, etc?

• Formalize test suite

  • Have repository with list of test files.
  • Add more test files.
  • Figure out some kind of snapshot testing that isn't vulnerable to subtle platform changes.
  • Look at fuzzing suites (see lcamtuf.blogspot.com) for interesting test files.

• Implement testing

  • Factor out prefix scan stuff
  • Implement fuzzing for all the deterministic stages of the pipelines.
  • Implement sanity checks for the GPU-stuff. (eg check that there are not WAR hazards, that kind of thing.)