Re: GSoC 2010

From: Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>
Date: Feb 12, 2010, 08:06 UTC
Message-ID: <20100212080620.GA31719@dcvr.yhbt.net>
In-Reply-To: <fabb9a1e1002101223o6a00f7eavb84567c1119c8ebc@mail.gmail.com>

Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> Heya,
> 
> Dscho created a GSoC 2010 idea's page [0] a few weeks ago, but it's a
> bit sad at the moment (only two idea's). Part of the reason Git was
> listed as 'example application' before was our awesome idea list, we
> should live up to that again this year :). If you feel like mentoring
> a summer of code student, or if you have a great idea, please add it
> to the list so that our would-be students have some variety in
> choosing their projects. I just added "A remote helper for svn" [1]
> myself, since I would love to see native svn support in git. Would
> either Daniel or Eric (or someone else of course) be interested in
> being a co- or backup-mentor for this project?

Hi Sverre,

I can't commit to anything, but they're welcome to email me/the list for guidance. I've left some notes further down in this email as well...

  It's been a long time since I've had time (or need, since most projects
  I care about have moved to git) to hack on git-svn.

  The git-vcs-* stuff is interesting and a good reason to refactor/redo
  parts of git-svn to work with it.  It's been overdue for a
  refactoring/cleanup for _years_ now.

I can't say SVN (nor the Perl support libraries) are pleasant to work with. Things to keep in mind:

* avoid memory leaks by using explicit pools

* avoid memory errors (which are much harder to track down
  wrapped around layers of SWIG/XS/SVN library abstractions).
  We sometimes copy SVN native data types into normal Perl ones
  ASAP to avoid errors/leaks

* inconsistent between different repo types:
  - escaping may be rules are stricter/laxer for some paths
  - error codes aren't consistent

* inability to safely maintain multiple connections to a repo
  in one process

I'm sure I'm missing some things here that my mind just blocked out entirely...

All of them should be well-documented in the git-svn commit history and/or comments.

-- 
Eric Wong