[MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH]VO_VDPAU, round 2

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 07:52:53PM +0200, Jan Knutar wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 January 2009, Reimar Döffinger wrote:
> > mp_msg of course. VDPAU has no way to get an error string?
> > Also the error messages should have _some_ meaning, we are not
> > Microsoft and think that undocumented error numbers are helpful I
> > hope ;-)...
> 
> On the nvidia linux forums it seems they recommend setting additional 
> env variables to get debug/trace printf's out of vdpau, which are yet 
> more (and longer) error numbers, which the users post. Then nvidia 
> folks reply and tell you the problem... :-)

I know, quite a few companies like that approach to debugging, and I
have heard the most ridiculous arguments for it, like "if we use a
meaningful message, we need to get manager approval because it has to
be translated, so we try use only meaningless messages".
That does not make it better (ok, the approach of not checking errors
at all is not really better, and I would not have minded much if a
couple of -v messages just would have printed numbers, but having _all_
in that style is not okay).