[ogg-dev] OggPCM proposal feedback

[Ralph Giles]

On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 01:35:47PM -0800, Arc wrote:

> >     "Please don't make determination of the data format depend on 
> >      multiple fields. Instead use an enumeration so that something 
> >      like little endian 16 bit PCM can be specifed as OGG_PCM_LE_PCM_16 
> >      and big endian 64 bit doubles can be specified as OGG_PCM_BE_FLOAT_64. 
> >      This scheme is far more transparent and self documenting. If the 
> >      format field is 8 bits, this scheme supports 256 formats; if its 16 
> >      bit it will support 65536 formats.
> 
> You're still working with the philosophy of FourCC-world, where based on 
> wether a plugin or application supports a 32-bit identifier you know if 
> it either has full support or no support.

It's not just the FourCC world; lots of unixland audio code works this 
way too. I agree with de Castro Lopo. Making a general format and then
saying people are free to only implement the subset they care about is
contrary to Xiph's design philosophy and will lead directly to 
interoperability issues. It's better to specify and require a useful
subset here.

 -r