[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 1/1] Extend and clarify documentation for -ac ffmpeg option.

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 12:32:06AM +0200, Stefano Sabatini wrote:
> On date Thursday 2010-07-29 17:49:18 +0000, Carl Eugen Hoyos encoded:
> > Stefano Sabatini <stefano.sabatini-lala <at> poste.it> writes:
> > 
> > > On date Thursday 2010-07-29 11:25:14 +0000, Carl Eugen Hoyos encoded:
> > > > Stefano Sabatini <stefano.sabatini-lala <at> poste.it> writes:
> > > > 
> > > > > -Set the number of audio channels (default = 1).
> > > > > +Set the number of audio channels. For input streams it is set by
> > > > > +default to 1,
> > > > 
> > > > > for output streams it is set by default to the same
> > > > > +number of audio channels in input.
> > > > 
> > > > Unfortunately, I don't think this is correct:
> > > > It defaults for the number of channels in the last audio stream of the input
> > > > file iirc.
> > > 
> > > Updated, should sound more correct now, regards.
> > 
> > (Sorry for omitting the cynic tags in my last message.)
> > I think your latest patch should _not_ be applied, imo the behaviour your first
> > patch described is what we want, it's currently buggy unfortunately.
> 
> I'd say to apply the patch *and* fix the behavior then if you think
> it's wrong.

That doesn't work IMO.

> The problem with the attitude "you have to fix everything
> now!" is that what it gets done is exactly *nothing*.

Not everything, but at least what the indended behaviour is
must be decided before and written in the documentation.
Obviously it also should document that it's not working
correctly currently.
I obviously don't think that fixing the code is a prerequisite
to documenting it though.

> Correctly documenting a buggy behavior is better than wrongly
> documenting a buggy behavior.

Not if it makes people believe that buggy behaviour is the correct one.
It will cause suprises when we fix it, it might make people "fix" things
in exactly the wrong way (e.g. trying to change other options to behave
the same wrong way for consistency) etc.