What I don't understand about this logic is why you don't opt to augment SPIR-V with the aspects required as opposed to branching off on an entirely different standard. I'm sure there are politics I'm not privy to, but here I am watching 48 processors pegged on compiling shaders and I really don't care to deal with another instruction set.
I don't see why it should be relevant at this point, although there are several large test suites (including fuzzers) for common libraries in the SPIR-V ecosystem. Shader language tests should be added to the WebGPU conformance test suite regardless of the language.
I think we should focus more on the advantages and disadvantages of WSL and SPIR-V, and their relevance to existing or future ecosystems -- not debate over which language had the first web tests.
When someone says one option is a nonstarter because it's new and immature, I think its fair to look at different signs of maturity to evaluate that statement.
(I personally don't think any option is a "nonstarter" but it's hard to even get agreement on the relevant evaluation criteria.)
It's not "new and immature." It has a formal specification and is used in production on devices/pcs everywhere. The comment itself was sort of vacuous and nitpicking a single aspect which is something that could be remedied through collaboration.
The set of web safety changes for SPIR-V is kind of new and immature in my opinion. I agree that it's building on a core that is widely deployed in other contexts.
By that standard, everything with respect to a shader ISA for the web is "new and immature." The point is finding a suitable common ground for all vendors to agree on working on. Not everyone going every which way to work on uncoordinated efforts.
