Much faster

I’ve been playing around with WebGL. To many people reading this, the word “WebGL” might not mean very much. But to some it is a very big deal.

You see, computers have been getting faster at an exponential rate, a phenomenon commonly known as “Moore’s Law”. So computations which were out of reach only a few years ago, because they were just too gosh darned slow, one day become easy, and then soon after that you can do them in real time.

The general purpose processor on your computer can do a lot of different things, but that very generality means it can only go so fast. It’s not allowed to cut corners, because it has to be general.

But those little graphics processor chips that also come with your computer have no such responsibility. They don’t need to run an operating system, or a file system, or support your text editor or spreadsheet. All they need to do is make graphics happen blazingly fast. And that means they can indeed cut corners. As a result, they can do certain calculations hundreds of times faster than your computer’s main processor.

WebGL is a standard that lets you access all that raw power directly from your Web browser. It’s not yet supported by all Web browsers, but it will be.

Which means that I and others who make cool graphics things can, right in your Web browser, show you — and let you play with — stuff that is far cooler and more intricate than anything you’ve ever seen before.

I’m going to start posting examples of this stuff soon, as soon as I make something I’m really happy with.