[FFmpeg-devel] GSoC with FFMpeg waht a combination!

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 05:49:08AM +0200, Jason (spot) Brower wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 10:49 PM, Mike Melanson <mike at multimedia.cx> wrote:
> >
> > Jason (spot) Brower wrote:
> >  > My favorite converter is in Google summer of code!  Wootness!
> >  > I am a python programmer interested in created the gui front end for
> >  > ffmpeg.  I did a successful job last year making a gtk application and
> >  > I think, with a little help, I could really make a special and unique
> >  > gui for ffmpeg.  I personally haven't seen a frontend for FFMpeg at
> >  > all before.  So I think I have my work cut out for me.
> >  > Is there a mentor already assigned or willing to take control of this
> >  > idea?  I would love to talk about some of the requirements for the
> >  > applications and share my ideas.
> >  > If your a mentor for the project, feel free to email me in list or
> >  > person.  In fact, if you like, you can add me to your jabber account
> >  > too. :D
> >  > Excited to get rolling agian this year!
> >
> >  I have been monitoring the ensuing thread. As the FFmpeg GSoC admin, I
> >  should mention that I don't find this to be an suitable project. Mostly,
> >  I'm thinking in terms of qualification tasks. I see these other students
> >  working hard on tight C programming; how could we let in a higher level
> >  task like this?
> >
> >  I was also thinking of proposing a test engineering project (based on my
> >  FATE work). But, again, that's a little too high level and I didn't want
> >  to create multiple tiers of qualifications.
> I understand now that we need C developers.  But why when we are
> making a front end. 

People not knowing C and neither knowing asm tend to produce inefficient code
irrespective of the actual language they use. This is not 100% true but its
close.
The cause of this is likely that not knowing any low level language means not
knowing how a computer works or what a cpu can actually execute and what
the compiler turns into a million instructions.


> Additionally, people mock how slow these took
> kits are but ignore all the accessability,

I must addmit i dont know much about "accessability" but i suspect that
random applications are not too accessible as such, toolkit or not.

Also a hearing impaired person should not have any problem using any
GUI (no relation to the toolkit here)
And a visually impaired person likely would use the command line tool,
at least that seems logic to me, GUI and not being able to see it is a little
contradictionary, even with a speech synthesizer reading it. But again
iam no "accessability" expert iam just taking educated guesses.


> usability, and

slow -> not really useable


> internationalization of the program.

Why do you think there would be a problem here?


>  WinAmp/xmms for example is not
> used in most linux version now 

Well most people i know install the software they like. Distros dont
decide what people use.
And besides, its of no relevance what the distros choose as default.
Software should be developed based on what one belives is best not what
would sell best to a bunch of smart ass managers. This is FOSS not the
commercial SW world.
If a blind man comes to me and complains id listen to him and try to
improve the software, but no i wont listen to a bunch of smart asses
who say that using a toolkit will magically make the software easy to use
to a visually impaired.

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your
right to say it. -- Voltaire
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