[FFmpeg-cvslog] random thoughts about refactoring

Diego Biurrun diego
Sun Jan 10 22:45:16 CET 2010


On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 10:23:34PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 02:48:00PM -0500, compn wrote:
> > 
> > i'll paste some relevent irc chat:
> 
> thank you!
> while not as usefull as i thought, it is usefull.
> 
> some comments below
> 
> > [17:49] <DonDiego> Dark_Shikari: we have no students who reach the patch review phase, so this is not a problem
> 
> ehm? there are plenty who did reach patch review, theres even a patch laying
> around that i should review. You make it look quite a bit worse than it is

SoC is not going too well and what's worse, it's not improving year over
year..

> > [17:51] <Dark_Shikari> For example, if you were writing an h264 decoder, you would have to write a header + bitstream parser
> > [17:51] <Dark_Shikari> that printed dct coefficients for cavlc streams
> > [17:51] <DonDiego> yes, i notice that many people from there apply and i suspect that money could be a motivation, there's $4500 to earn, i can live off that kind of money for 1/2 year in germany..
> > [17:51] <Dark_Shikari> that kind of thing is _useful for your actual project_
> > [17:51] <kierank> the x264 qualifications are meatier than ffmpeg ones
> > [17:51] <DonDiego> mru: jai has just taken money and done nothing in return :-/
> > [17:52] <Dark_Shikari> 2) You must be on IRC often, and get to know the community
> > [17:52] <Dark_Shikari> you must be involved
> > [17:52] <Dark_Shikari> you must respond to pings
> > [17:52] <Dark_Shikari> If I ping you and say "there's a bug in your code here", you should be able to respond
> > [17:52] <Dark_Shikari> obviously, I can't control timezones/sleep schedules/etc
> > [17:52] <mru> DonDiego: jai has done stuff though
> > [17:52] <Dark_Shikari> but in general, you shouold be available.
> > [17:52] <kierank> 22:42] <@Dark_Shikari> you must respond to pings --> like janihan ;)
> > [17:52] <Dark_Shikari> lol
> > [17:52] <DonDiego> mru: that was last year, this year it was money for nothing..
> > [17:53] * mru takes the chicks for free...
> 
> > [17:53] <Dark_Shikari> I don't think the x264 requirements are harder than ffmpeg
> > [17:53] <Dark_Shikari> the ffmpeg qual tasks are really hard
> > [17:53] <Dark_Shikari> and don't even relate to the main project often
> > [17:53] <Dark_Shikari> I think the main thing is that we create a community and force people to be involved
> > [17:53] <Dark_Shikari> and if they can't stay online and involved, they don't get in
> > [17:53] <mru> that's how communities work
> > [17:53] <mru> _saying_ you're in doesn't make it so
> > [17:54] <Dark_Shikari> yup
> > [17:54] <Dark_Shikari> having a qual task that leads into the main project is the best idea of mine IMO
> > [17:54] <Dark_Shikari> it gives people a feeling that they're actually part done with the project
> > [17:54] <Dark_Shikari> before SOC even starts
> > [17:54] <Dark_Shikari> and people are less likely to quit in the middle
> > [17:55] <Dark_Shikari> as opposed to simply bullshitting and quitting after getting nothing done
> > [17:55] <DonDiego> we need to work on our soc, it's in a sad state and not improving
> 
> > [17:55] <DonDiego> also, our tasks are *much* too hard
> > [17:55] <Dark_Shikari> well, here's my advice for improving ffmpeg SOC
> 
> > [17:55] <DonDiego> basically the only student that ever finished a decoder is kostya
> 
> complete nonsense

Absolutely not.  There is only one non-Kostya-implemented decoder that
made it into FFmpeg start to finish during SoC: MPEG-4 ALS.

Our SoC tasks are too hard, it's a fact.

> > [17:56] <Dark_Shikari> DylanZA was one of our successes last year
> > [17:56] <Dark_Shikari> he picked x264 over ffmpeg
> > [17:56] <DonDiego> hmm
> > [17:57] <DonDiego> qual tasks were started after the first year
> > [17:57] <DylanZA> most reasonable students will pick a couple of projects anyway
> > [17:57] <DonDiego> to weed out incompetent students
> > [17:57] <Dark_Shikari> DonDiego: IMO there are two requirements
> > [17:57] <Dark_Shikari> 1) competent/self-motivated
> > [17:57] <Dark_Shikari> 2) involved
> > [17:57] <DylanZA> but if one is too difficult then they choose another. but the poor students might just stick to one project and try their luck
> > [17:57] <Dark_Shikari> unless you have both, you will have a failure
> > [17:58] <DylanZA> Dark_Shikari: yuo also need luck
> 
> > [17:58] <Dark_Shikari> this is why I'm biased against indian/chinese students, they do not tend to be very involved
> 
> if iam not mistaken our mxf muxer was written by a chinese student together
> with his mentor baptiste

Kartikey Mahendra Bhatt and Xiaohui Sun were complete failures, then
there's a bunch of incompetent ones that failed during qualification.

> also jai is indian if iam not mistaken and he wrote the alac stuff
> jai failed on jpeg2k but kamil who i think was from poland failed on that
> before.

Jai worked well one year and milked SoC for the money the next year..

Diego



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