[FFmpeg-devel] [FFmpeg-mentors] New task ideas for GSoC and Outreachy

[wm4]

On Mon, 15 Feb 2016 10:17:39 +0100
Stefano Sabatini <stefasab at gmail.com> wrote:

> On date Monday 2016-02-15 09:21:15 +0100, Paul B Mahol encoded:
> > On 2/15/16, Stefano Sabatini <stefasab at gmail.com> wrote:  
> > > On date Wednesday 2016-02-10 16:21:09 +0000, Kieran Kunhya encoded:  
> [...]
> > >> So, in the spirit of open source, I'd like to ask you, the developers and
> > >> users what students should work on.
> > >>
> > >> Note that this needs to be a clearly defined task that a student needs to
> > >> work on for two months FULL-TIME so it can't just be fixing the odd thing
> > >> here and there.  
> > >
> > > What about API scripting? This is a huge task though.  
> >   
> 
> > API of what?  
> 
> The API of FFmpeg. What I mean: scripting the external FFmpeg API, so
> that for example one can write a Python/lua/whatever script directly
> using the FFmpeg libraries.

If a student does this, I'd expect a LOT of boiler plate copy&pasting
to expose arbitrary API functions in the least useful and safe way
possible. A student task should probably be rather something that:

- does not require designing APIs
- has a very clear, functional goal
- is somewhat self-contained, rather than encompassing all of ffmpeg

(Sorry for pessimism.)