[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] ffprobe integration

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 02:04:13PM +0100, Nicolas George wrote:
> Le primidi 21 pluvi?se, an CCXVIII, M?ns Rullg?rd a ?crit?:
[...]
> > It is a bad idea to have the closing marker depend on the
> > group/section name since it allows for malformed content which then
> > must be detected and rejected.  A generic "close whatever was last
> > opened" token avoids this problem.
> 
> I completely disagree with this assertion. A generic close marker does not
> make malformed content impossible, it makes it impossible to detect.
> Example:
> 
> Lorem <bold>ipsum dolor <italic>sit amet</bold>, consectetur
> adipisicing</italic> elit
> 
> Lorem \bold{ipsum dolor \italic{sit amet}, consectetur adipisicing} elit
> 
> The second one is syntactically correct, but its semantics is not what was
> intended.
> 
> So let me rephrase your sentence: with matching end-markers, malformed
> content *can* be detected.

true. But even though off topic i must mention that the ability to detect
and handle something with alot of extra complexity can and did in some cases
make this complexity mandatory for every implementation.
Just take html/xml/xhtml as example, had it been designed in a way that made
parsing of invalid content impossible people could not have written pages
full of such invalid stuff. But in reality if the major 1-2 parsers support
many invalid cases many people can end up using them and thus requireing
every practically useable parser to also support all that interpretations.
Its a case where this cleary turned out worse overall for everyone

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

In fact, the RIAA has been known to suggest that students drop out
of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford
settlements. -- The RIAA
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