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matmul — matrix multiply benchmark

Three compute targets in Tish, all using native imports.

examples/matmul/
  tish-metal/          native Tish module — tiled MSL compute kernel
  tish-mlx/            native Tish module — Apple MLX via mlx-rs
  src/
    main.tish          CPU    — import nothing, just Tish primitives
    matmul_gpu.tish    Metal  — import { matmul_f32, run_f32 } from 'tish:metal'
    matmul_mlx.tish    MLX    — import { matmul_f32 } from 'tish:mlx'
  crates/
    matmul_gpu/        standalone Rust binary (direct Metal, no Tish)
    matmul_mlx/        standalone Rust binary (direct MLX, no Tish)

The tish-metal and tish-mlx directories are local native Tish modules. They live here in the example — not in core Tish — and are resolved by the compiler via the package.json / sibling-directory lookup in the native module system.

Running

CPU (Tish native compilation — f64 primitives)

tish build src/main.tish -o matmul-cpu --native-backend rust
./matmul-cpu

Metal GPU

# From examples/matmul/
tish build src/matmul_gpu.tish -o matmul-gpu --native-backend rust
./matmul-gpu

Apple MLX

mlx-rs vendors the MLX C library — no brew install needed, only Xcode CLT. First build takes a few minutes while CMake compiles MLX from source.

# From examples/matmul/
tish build src/matmul_mlx.tish -o matmul-mlx --native-backend rust
./matmul-mlx

Standalone Rust binaries (no Tish required)

cargo build --release -p matmul_gpu && ./target/release/matmul-gpu
cargo build --release -p matmul_mlx && ./target/release/matmul-mlx

How the native module system works

import { matmul_f32 } from 'tish:metal' triggers the compiler to:

  1. Look for tish-metal/package.json in sibling directories
  2. Read "tish": { "crate": "tish-metal", "export": "metal_object" }
  3. Add tish-metal as a Cargo dependency in the generated binary
  4. Call tish_metal::metal_object() to get the module's export object

The metal_object() function (in tish-metal/src/lib.rs) returns a Value::Object containing matmul_f32, run_f32, and device_name as Value::Function entries. No changes to core Tish needed.

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