On 8/18/07, Andy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:> > > Did the BBC do that? The BBC has failed to provide any evidence that > they did so lets look at the design decisions shall we. > > Programming Language: C. > Is C platform Independent/neutral ? NO. > iPlayer is a GUI program, does C have native support (in the C > language standard, either ISO or ANSI) for GUI development ? NO. > Is there an accepted standard for OS interaction from C? YES POSIX, > Was it used? NO. > Is C portable ? Yes, provided no non standard OS calls are made and no > non-portable libraries where used, they where. > > Libraries/Third Party Apps: > Kontiki > Platform Neutral: NO > Uses publicly defined communications specs (e.g. an RFC): NO > Provides access to code for porting to new platforms: NO > > WMV > Platform Neutral: NO > Uses publicly defined file formats (e.g. and RFC or ISO): NO > Provides access to code for porting to new platforms: NO >
Actually (as one of the engineers involved in the backend delivery), most of the iplayer code is in perl. It's all the CPS systems you can't see. Iplayer isn't just about the front end delivery system. That's probably less than 10% of the code base. Most of the iplayer system has been about building the internal production systems, getting the meta data flowing end-to-end. Trying to get the meta data right. Changing the production systems of the entire BBC from being schedule to programme driven. The only DRM and Konteki decisions are tiny little bits of code sat on the outside of the system. The interfaces to most of the internal systems are minimal. They just happen to be the very public bits. Just because the client currently is built on windows media and konteki, doesn't mean that it has to be in the future. The backend however, the meta data now flowing more through the heart of the organisation - the one single id to determine what a programme is, that's the key stuff. The internal API's, the datafeeds being developed. That stuff is more for life. The DRM is just details in the long term. If the BBC choose to cut out the entire DRM and windows stuff, remove konteki, and post everything to Youtube, it could do it now (rights holders allowing). It couldn't do it anything other than manually before iplayer. You've no idea how much the organisation has had to move internally to get to where it is. Your seeing the tip of an iceberg, which will melt eventually. Mike. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
