[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] update doc/optimization.txt

[Måns Rullgård]

Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> writes:

> On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 07:58:09PM +0100, M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>> Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> writes:
>> 
>> > On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 06:23:16PM +0100, M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>> >> "Ronald S. Bultje" <rsbultje at gmail.com> writes:
>> >> 
>> >> > Hi,
>> >> >
>> >> > $subj, fixes a typo and mentions yasm.
>> >> >
>> >> > I could word it stronger ("if you write new code, yasm is preferred
>> >> > for non-inlined functions") if we can agree on that (which I don't
>> >> > think we do yet).
>> >> 
>> >> Does anyone who actually writes any asm nowadays disagree?
>> >
>> > i dont know, but the one maintaining the x86 asm does
>> 
>> Ronald has done more maintenance there than anyone else recently.
>
> it depends on how you define maintaince, ronald did a lot of usefull asm
> related work recently and maybe recently more than anyone else. But i dont
> think he has maintained the existing asm.

He fixed a ton of bugs.  If that is not maintaining the code, I don't
know what is.

>> > and the project leader disagrees too
>> 
>> What rational arguments do you have in favour of inline asm over yasm?
>
> That has been discussed already if iam not mistaken
> but i can repeat what i remember of it
> * The call overhead can be avoided

I am only talking about code which is called through a function
pointer regardless of the implementation.

> * it works on all platforms that have gcc or compatible compilers
> * it allows mixing in of C code,that is especially when accessing structs
>   quite nice and leads to more readable code.
> * The actual existing yasm code is rather unpretty and mixed with
>   plenty of macros.
>
> Also what maybe hasnt been mentioned, i dont know ...
> The inline vs. external asm (nasm back then) discussion has happened already
> many years ago and the consensus was that inline was better.

Do you have a reference for that?  I'd like to see what arguments were
made that time.

> Now the technology has changed but i dont think it has changed much and also
> i dont remember anyone arguing along  the line that it was bad in the past
> but due to feature X it is now good to use external asm.

One significant change is the widespread adoption of x86_64.  We've
had many build failures in inline asm caused by mismatched operand
types.

> What i see is jason and the people surrounding him pushing for yasm.
> prior to x264 people pushed for inline (and people was not me here when iam
> remembering correctly)

I don't remember much pushing taking place.  Some people wrote a bunch
of code using inline asm, and nobody really questioned it.

> What i really dislike is the switching the preferred asm style every few
> years depending on the by then more active people.
> The result is a mix of 2 systems where one has to deal with all issues of
> both. This is probably not really avoidable now but still...

The alternative is bitrot, witness libswscale.

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mans at mansr.com