[FFmpeg-devel] Removing DCE

[Matt Oliver]

On 16 December 2016 at 13:48, Matt Oliver <protogonoi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Recently we have again received several patches that are trying to add
> workarounds for ffmpegs use of DCE. This is not the first time this has
> happened and wont be the last until a decision is made about the use of
> DCE. So I think its time that we made a official decision on the use of
> DCE. This is of course something that should be properly agreed upon by
> developers going forward as different people have different opinions on the
> matter so to help assist this I will summaries all of the previously made
> arguments from both sides of the discussion.
>
> For DCE:
> 1) Ends up with a horrible mess of ifdefs.
> 2) Disabled parts of code will not be checked for syntax.
>
> Against DCE:
> 3) DCE is not actually specified in the C specification. So compilers are
> actually being 100% compliant by not supporting it and should not be
> expected to change just for ffmpegs use case.
> 4) Breaks debug and lto builds on msvc.
> 5) Breaks debug and lto builds on icl.
> 6) Issues with lto with Clang and Gold.
> 7) Other unspecified issues with debug builds
>
> Rebuttals against above arguments:
> 8) There are already 3961 #ifs(not including header guards) in the code so
> there is already a lot of code that doesn't use DCE. (In response to #1 for
> DCE).
> 9) Avoiding #ifdefs is a personal opinion as to whether they are ugly or
> not (some prefer ifdefs as IDEs will correctly highlight disabled
> sections). Someones personal preference for what looks better should not be
> justification to break supported configurations/compilers. (In response to
> #1 for DCE).
> 10) There is --enable-random which is supposed to be used to find
> configurations that don't compile. (in response to #2 for DCE).
> 11) Just because something compiles does not mean that it actually works,
> relying on just syntax checking is dangerous as it gives false security as
> the code is not actually being tested. (in response to #2 for DCE)
> 12) There are numerous FATE tests that should find all the configuration
> errors. (in response to #2 for DCE)
> 12) MSVC is broken and we shouldn't support it so Microsoft are forced to
> fix it (in response to #4 against DCE) - This point is countermanded by #3
> against DCE and reported issues with other compilers as well.
>
>
> Most of the above points were taken from peoples posts in the following
> mailing list thread:
> https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2016-April/193437.html
> https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2016-May/194115.html
>
> Its my personal opinion that DCE should be removed from the code but this
> is something I am aware will require a developer consensus and perhaps even
> a vote. Stating something is broken is one thing so I will also put forward
> a solution in that if it is agreed upon to remove DCE usage then I will
> spend the time and effort to go through the existing code base and replace
> DCE with appropriate #ifs.
>
> Matt
>

Ok i thought I would at least get some response to this. Historically any
submitted patch to change the use of Dead Code Elimination has been met
with criticism. So I would prefer some sort of consensus before spending
any time writing patches to remove DCE and fix the previously mentioned
issues. This email was intended to get people discussing the issue so that
a decision could be reached so it would be nice if people (particularly
developers with voting rights) chimed in.