Ichthyostega a317593822 clean-up: dismantle the low-level time handling library (see #1259) ...

Initially we assumed that »handling time« is largely a matter of computation.
''Time is just a value'' and can be treated with integral arithmetic, some
modulus computations and pre-defined constants.

This turned out to be a mistake. Anything related to time is intricate,
and it is essential to distinguish different meanings of "times"
 - time values related to an internal computation framework have
   implementation-defined meaning and should be ''marked as opaque''
 - temporal data can be ''mapped to a grid scale'' — an essential step
   for media processing, which however incurs information loss
 - externally relevant time specifications are represented symbolically,
   by translation into a ''Time Code''

Drawing from these insights, a framework for time handling has been established;
building in part on the low-level function style base implementation.
Exposing this base implementation as a C-library however is considered
dangerous, as it may lure into ''ad hoc'' computations, which are a major
source of inconsistencies and notorious defects in many media applications.

2025-05-29 02:04:36 +02:00

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