Shamelessly responding as the author. I (mostly) agree with you here.

> please be surgically precise with your terms

There's always a tension between precision in every explanation and the "moral" truth. I can say "a SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) vector unit like the TPU VPU with 32 ALUs (SIMD lanes) which NVIDIA calls CUDA Cores", which starts to get unwieldy and even then leaves terms like vector units undefined. I try to use footnotes liberally, but you have to believe the reader will click on them. Sidenotes are great, but hard to make work in HTML.

For terms like MXU, I was intending this to be a continuation of the previous several chapters which do define the term, but I agree it's maybe not reasonable to assume people will read each chapter.

There are other imprecisions here, like the term "Warp Scheduler" is itself overloaded to mean the scheduler, dispatch unit, and SIMD ALUs, which is kind of wrong but also morally true, since NVIDIA doesn't have a name for the combined unit. :shrug:

I agree with your points and will try to improve this more. It's just a hard set of compromises.

I appreciate your response. I made a point of not revising my comment after posting it and finding in a subsequent parable the following, quoting:

> Each SM is broken up into 4 identical quadrants, which NVIDIA calls SM subpartitions, each containing a Tensor Core, 16k 32-bit registers, and a SIMD/SIMT vector arithmetic unit called a Warp Scheduler, whose lanes (ALUs) NVIDIA calls CUDA Cores.

And right after:

> CUDA Cores: each subpartition contains a set of ALUs called CUDA Cores that do SIMD/SIMT vector arithmetic.

So, to your defense and my shame -- you *did* do better than I was able to infer from first glance. And I can take absolutely no issue with a piece elaborating on originally "vague" sentence later on -- we need to read top to bottom, after all.

Much of the difficulty with laying out knowledge in written word is inherent constraints like choosing between deferring detail to "further down" at the expense of giving the "bird's eye view". I mean there is a reason writing is hard, technical writing perhaps more so, in a way. You're doing much better than a lot of other stuff I've had to learn with, so I can only thank you to have done as much as you already have.

To be more constructive still, I agree the border between clarity and utility isn't always clearly drawn. But I think you can think of it as a service to your readers -- go with precision I say -- if you really presuppose the reader should know SIMD, chances are they are able to grok a new definition like "SIMD lane" if you define it _once_ and _well_. You don't need to be "unwieldy" in repetition -- the first time may be hard but you only need to do it once.

I am rambling. I do believe there are worse and better ways to impart knowledge of the kind in writing, but I too obviously don't have the answers, so my criticism was in part inconstructive, just a sheer outcry of mild frustration once I started conflating things from the get go but before I decided to give it a more thorough read.

One last thing though: I always like when a follow-up article starts with a preamble along of "In the previous part of the series..." so new visitors can simultaneously become aware there's prior knowledge that may be assumed, _and_ navigate their way to desired point in the series, all the way to the start perhaps. That frees you from e.g. wanting to annotate abbreviations in every part, if you want to avoid doing that.

1) Thank you for writing this.

2) What are your thoughts on links to the wiki articles under things such as "SIMD" or "ALUs" for the precise meaning while using the metaphors in your prose?

Most novices tend to Google and end up on Wikipedia for the trees. It's harder to find the forest.

I feel you handle this balance quite gracefully, to the point where I was impressed at your handling of the issue while reading and before checking the comments section. I don't know why the idea of something being called something by marketing or documentation (names which one must, strategically accept and internalize) but fundamentally and functionally being better described with other language isn't clearer (which is more useful, so also needed) to the grandparent poster. You want people to be aware of both and explain both without dwelling or getting caught on it, it struck me as an artful choice.

I often put requirements at the top of article

> This article assumes you've read [this] and [this] and understand > [this topic] and [this topic too]

I'm not sure that's helpful, and, I don't put everything. Those links might also have further links saying you need X, Y, and Z. But at least there is a trail on where to start