I'm not sure I disagree with you really - and I ack that webgpu feels like 2015 tech to someone who knows their stuff. I don't have a take on "l33t gfx coder"; I'm a hobbyist not a professional, and I've enjoyed getting up to speed with WebGPU over and above my experiences with WebGL. Happy to be schooled.
I've never impl PBF or raytracing because my interests haven't gone that way. I don't find SDFs to be a particularly difficult concept to "study up on" either though. It's about as close to math-as-drawing that I've seen and doesn't require much more than a couple triangles and a fragment shader. By contrast I've been learning about SVT for a couple months and still haven't quite pieced together a working impl in webgpu... though I understand there are extensions specifically in support of virtual tiling that WebGPU could pursue in a future version.
Agreed DevEx broadly isn't great when working on graphics. But WebGPU feels like a considerable improvement rather than a step backward.
I've never impl PBF or raytracing because my interests haven't gone that way. I don't find SDFs to be a particularly difficult concept to "study up on" either though. It's about as close to math-as-drawing that I've seen and doesn't require much more than a couple triangles and a fragment shader. By contrast I've been learning about SVT for a couple months and still haven't quite pieced together a working impl in webgpu... though I understand there are extensions specifically in support of virtual tiling that WebGPU could pursue in a future version.
Agreed DevEx broadly isn't great when working on graphics. But WebGPU feels like a considerable improvement rather than a step backward.