[FFmpeg-devel] Re: [RFC] C++

["Rémi Denis-Courmont via ffmpeg-devel" <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>]

Le keskiviikkona 22. lokakuuta 2025, 21.12.47 Itä-Euroopan kesäaika Timo 
Rothenpieler via ffmpeg-devel a écrit :
> They allow a distributor to do it centrally, and don't burden it onto 
> every single developer.

And? Neither does Cargo? It does not force developers to pin anything. It's 
*recommended* to pin if (and only if) shipping a final application or OS, 
rather than libraries, i.e. unless you're the distributor.

Obviously someone is going to have to be burdened with checking versions and 
bugs at some point in the supply chain, with the user as the last resort - 
that's true for any programming language.

> > Cargo gives you the *choice* of pinning or not pinning the versions
> > through the lock. FFmpeg should *probably* not pin anything and just
> > specify minimum version requirements. And it'll be the exact same
> > dependency hell that we already have (or don't have - that's subjective)
> > with C. Nothing to see here.
> 
> Given that API stability is far from a given in that world,

It's no more or less stable than C. It is far better than C++ where you need 
to be super careful and bend over backward not to leak object type layouts 
through public headers.

> not pinning  anything does not sound like a good idea.

And yet FFmpeg is not currently pinning any existing dependencies. This has 
nothing to do with using C++ or Rust really.

> I'd rather just not enter that dependency hell at all.

Sure, you do that by not having dependencies. That's an argument against 
external dependencies (which I can get behind), and it is also an argument 
against C++ which requires a runtime even if you don't touch the STL.

By design, you can do C, Rust or a mix of both, without dependencies  - as 
exemplified by the Linux kernel. It's just a matter of project policy. FWIW, 
Rust is actually handling this more consistently and flexibily than C, since it 
provides an intermediate point between freestanding and hosted environment - 
not that FFmpeg supports anything less than a hosted environment.

-- 
ヅニ-クーモン・レミ
Hagalund ny stad, f.d. Finska republik Nylands



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