[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH v2 1/3] libavutil/imgutils: add utility to get plane sizes

[Alexander Strasser]

On 2020-07-22 11:56 +0200, Nicolas George wrote:
> James Almer (12020-07-20):
> > No, i'll push v3 soon if my argumentation below was not enough to
> > convince Nicolas or Michael. My intention is to use ints for the new
> > function, not to postpone committing it in any form indefinitely.
>
> Sorry, I missed you mail earlier, I only read your arguments nowish.
>
> You are emphasizing that the "future-proof" argument is rather weak,
> which I was already aware. And you are underplaying the fact that it
> belongs to a trend to always delay necessary changes.
>
> Anyway, even if all the arguments for using the proper types are all
> very weak, there are several, and together I am still convinced they
> exceed "consistency" easily.
>
> consistently good > inconsistently good and bad > consistently bad
>                                                 ^
>                                                 |
>              this is the discussion we are having

From what I have read so far this is not a simple black and white
decision.

I think it's a discussion about coarseness of change. Improving
everything at once will likely never happen in a good way. But
still there are more step sizes in between.

Here is a excerpt of what Michael wrote before:

> If not (as in its more mess than if its done later in some other way)
> then we should not try to do this now
>
> The idea is just to take a step towards how these functions/API should look
> ideally. Its not to make some inconvenient mess

Changing at a per function level is the finest possible way of
API adjustment. Changing a group of functions would be the next
coarser way to adjust the API, and that's what I think James
opts for.

I personally would be OK with that strategy. It emphasizes on
the value of API users. As an API user I would find it annoying
to have inconsistencies at a per function level, even in the
same group of functions that are tied together by name and
by header.

In the long term, I believe we should focus on even more
consistency among groups of functions and libraries and
even cut down on the number of API functions needed.


  Alexander