[FFmpeg-devel] Re: [RFC PATCH] avformat/dashdec: Improve implementation

[Anton Khirnov]

Quoting zsugabubus (2021-04-10 03:54:12)
> On Sun, Mar 28, 2021 at 09:50:32PM +0100, Derek Buitenhuis wrote:
> > On 28/03/2021 21:05, Carl Eugen Hoyos wrote:
> > > The patch clearly mentions that it is a "rework".
> > > If the maintainer likes it, it would be nice if it can be simplified but
> > > this may not be possible.
> > 
> > Of course it's /possible/. People have been splitting rewrites/refactors into
> > these since forever; FFmpeg's history is full of them. 
> 
> It's great in theory but have you seen this code in reality? I felt
> forcing new features into the old code base would require more
> (physical) pain (at least for me) than rewriting everything from almost
> ground up.
> 
> And funnily, the circle already closed, since if the old code would be
> written in an easily extensible manner, I would not be required to send
> a patch now, since everything is so easy to implement and nicely fitted
> that all thing is there since the beginnings. No?
> 
> The approach I chose to trim the code to my needs and get rid of chaos,
> required rewriting the parser and almost all stuff in some way or
> another, so you would see a thousand line change anyway.

So if you're throwing away the old code entirely, it seems better to
- add a new demuxer under new name
- demonstrate that it is better in important ways than the old one
- deprecate the old one, eventually remove it
    * possibly remove it immediately, if the new demuxer provides all
      the features of the old one

-- 
Anton Khirnov