Re: [Bug 23220] Add 'zoom' constraint to VideoStreamTrack

On 10/02/2013 07:13 AM, Rob Manson wrote:
> Hi Harald,
>
>> Just a nit - I'd strongly object to using the name "Stream". The term
>> has been horribly abused in so many ways, starting with Unix System 7's
>> "Stream" model (the "solution for which Berkeley Sockets was a quick
>> hack").
>
> Fair point.
>
>
>> Pairing "Stream" with some modifier preserves a modicum of sanity.
>
> Where "some" is tiny and erroding 8)
>
>
>> (I know of one effort that is using "Stream" as "stream of bytes", aka
>> "the TCP model", and I think there's also one using "Stream" as "stream
>> of records", aka "the OSI Transport model". Neither is a media stream
>> (or a MediaStream), of course. A plague on both their houses' names,
>> I say.)
>
> Heh.
>
> There's also this[1] but I'm really not clear on how or if this is
> really being pursued.  Anyone here have any thoughts/comments on that
> (yes I know it's a webapps thing and I have discussed it with people
> on that list)?
>
> This related discussion is evolving too[2].
>
> I'm not really too concerned at the moment with the name of this
> concept.  But I think the key point that some type of underlying
> "stream of bits" architecture would be really useful.


That's where we part ways - if we try to model in terms of an underlying
"stream of bits", we lose all hope of sanity. There are no bits there.

I keep on trotting out this description:

http://alvesnotes.blogspot.no/2012/03/byte-stream-fallacy.html

We COULD, in theory, abstract out something called "a time-linked flow
of meaningful entities" (TLFOME) and specialize that to concepts called
"sound" and "moving pictures", further subdividing them into "TLFOME
with explicitly represented time" (possible to store) and "TLFOME
without explicitly represented time" ("real-time media"), and build
towers of abstractions on top of that.

But if we think of them as byte streams ..... we will not get the right
pictures in order to design our control surfaces.

-- 
Surveillance is pervasive. Go Dark.