GStreamer Making Progress On Vulkan Video Support

[OneTimeShot]

This is a dangerous attitude. If you want to learn a tool that you intend to do a lot of work in, then you should put in the effort to learn its various pitfalls, limitations, idioms, and good style. At minimum, my advice is to read the best book on it that you can find. And take notes!


This is a good example of what I mean.

Of course, I understand that recent revisions have been continually adding new features that lend themselves to new styles. This makes it more work to stay current, but with C++ you really have to put in the work to be truly proficient. This is not a good thing, BTW.

If I were starting a new project for which I'd previously used C++, I'd feel the need to have a good justification to use it over Rust. I think C actually has more staying power, because it scales down almost as well as anything out there.

Total BS. Developers are quite capable of keeping up with a number of technologies. C++ may be the hardest language I've come across (and I have only had one job that required it as the primary language) but that doesn't mean that it is particularly complex - just that I am not an expert in C++. If the thing you find hardest about your job is the syntax you type into your IDE then you're in trouble.

Obviously there are languages that I use every day, and languages i have used in the past that I keep on the back burner, but I would have no qualms about jumping into another C++ role. I would expect there to be yet another three month learning curve. Most other languages I can be reasonably productive in a month or so.

[coder]

If the thing you find hardest about your job is the syntax you type into your IDE then you're in trouble.

There's a lot more that goes into good style than syntax. And if your depth in any of the programming languages you've used is only as deep as learning different syntax for the same semantic constructs, then you're really limiting yourself -- either in depth or in the diversity of languages.

I can't remember the number of times I've heard hiring managers say "we'll hire smart people and they can learn what they need to know", only for them to stay perpetually stunted, because there's no follow-up plan for them to build the skills and depth of knowledge they were lacking. They tend to learn enough to get by, and that's it. And the result is continual reinventing of the wheel, a lot of wasted time and effort, and unnecessary defects.

[OneTimeShot]

I can't remember the number of times I've heard hiring managers say "we'll hire smart people and they can learn what they need to know",.

For most things that we do what the program actually does is more important than what programming language is. C++/Python/Java/C or whatever is the tool. Sometimes we work on video codecs, sometime user space programs, sometimes kernel drivers, sometimes Linux sometimes Windows.

I've probably used a dozen languages professionally. Currently I'm working with a Java guy who is switching to our C# codebase - he has 15 years of experience with our products, we're not going to fire and hire because he doesn't know C#...

[coder]

Currently I'm working with a Java guy who is switching to our C# codebase - he has 15 years of experience with our products, we're not going to fire and hire because he doesn't know C#...

That's funny, because I never actually said that. I would never let go of someone who does good work and has the capability to learn the new skills we need.

My advice was:

"put in the effort to learn its various pitfalls, limitations, idioms, and good style. At minimum, my advice is to read the best book on it that you can find. And take notes!"

When I started with GStreamer, I did exactly this. I read the app developers & plugin-writers guides, took a fair amount of notes, and then reviewed the reference docs, design docs (what few there were) and source code to answer as many of my questions as possible.

And with regard to the bit you quoted about hiring, what I said was lacking was:

"follow-up plan for them to build the skills and depth of knowledge they were lacking."

Such a plan could consist of enrolling them in a commercial training course, for instance.

[ssokolow]

Microsoft is now using Rust in the Windows kernel

I've heard people say this every now and then, but I've been having trouble tracking down a link to use as a citation and just have to link to lesser things like the Rust-based Azure component Microsoft released. Do you have a URL?

Is this "rewrite everything from C into Rust" thing some kind of Meme now?

It has been for a long time... one that really annoys people in /r/rust/ because they wind up having to run damage control for the idiots who think Rust is magic pixie dust.

[uid313]

I've heard people say this every now and then, but I've been having trouble tracking down a link to use as a citation and just have to link to lesser things like the Rust-based Azure component Microsoft released. Do you have a URL?

https://github.com/microsoft/windows-rs

It has been for a long time... one that really annoys people in /r/rust/ because they wind up having to run damage control for the idiots who think Rust is magic pixie dust.

Yeah, Rust isnt magic pixie dust that automatically solves all problems or makes software bug free or invulnerable to security vulnerabilities. However it does fix all memory safety bugs (except if using the unsafe keyword), it does fix race conditions (you can still have thread starvation, thread panics, etc), it does fix null reference bugs, through the Result enum it ensures that errors are handled, through the Option enum it ensures there are no nulls, through pattern matching with the match statement it ensures that every case is covered. Of course there can still be logic bugs though, but all in all it drastically improves safety and reliability of applications.

[Quackdoc]

https://github.com/microsoft/windows-rs

Yeah, Rust isnt magic pixie dust that automatically solves all problems or makes software bug free or invulnerable to security vulnerabilities. However it does fix all memory safety bugs (except if using the unsafe keyword), it does fix race conditions (you can still have thread starvation, thread panics, etc), it does fix null reference bugs, through the Result enum it ensures that errors are handled, through the Option enum it ensures there are no nulls, through pattern matching with the match statement it ensures that every case is covered. Of course there can still be logic bugs though, but all in all it drastically improves safety and reliability of applications.

"Its not magic pixie dust" Then proceeds to describe the next closest thing.

[uid313]

"Its not magic pixie dust" Then proceeds to describe the next closest thing.

Yeah, people criticize others when they bring up Rust with the argument "it is not magic pixie dust" as if the person who brought it up believed Rust is some magic thing that solves all problems (and maybe some people believe this), and while it is not, it does definitely have strengths and solved a lot of problem, especially security-related.

It also have other benefits such as zero-cost abstractions and generics.

That said, the language does have its drawbacks too, at the moment there is only the Rust compiler, there are no alternative compilers (although one for GCC is coming), the compiler is a it slow, and the async ecosystem is fragmented between async-std and Tokio.

[Gusar]

And here I thought I'll get to read something about video and Vulcan, but all I see is another C/rust flamefest started by uid313. FFS dude, cut this crap, you've derailed so many threads with this it's downright trolling.

[Weasel]

It also have other benefits such as zero-cost abstractions

Automatic bounds checking is not zero-cost.