Re: Git in Outreachy December 2019?

From: Jonathan Tan <jonathantanmy@google.com>
Date: Sep 20, 2019, 17:04 UTC
Message-ID: <20190920170448.226942-1-jonathantanmy@google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20190913205148.GA8799@sigill.intra.peff.net>

> Prospective mentors need to sign up on that site, and should propose a
> project they'd be willing to mentor.

[snip]

> I'm happy to discuss possible projects if anybody has an idea but isn't
> sure how to develop it into a proposal.

I'm new to Outreachy and programs like this, so does anyone have an opinion on my draft proposal below? It does not have any immediate user-facing benefit, but it does have a definite end point.

Also let me know if an Outreachy proposal should have more detail, etc.

    Refactor "git index-pack" logic into library code

    Currently, whenever any Git code needs a pack to be indexed, it
    needs to spawn a new "git index-pack" process, passing command-line
    arguments and communicating with it using file descriptors (standard
    input and output), much like an end-user would if invoking "git
    index-pack" directly. Refactor the pack indexing logic into library
    code callable from other Git code, make "git index-pack" a thin
    wrapper around that library code, and (to demonstrate that the
    refactoring works) change fetch-pack.c to use the library code
    instead of spawning the "git index-pack" process.

    This allows the pack indexing code to communicate with its callers
    with the full power of C (structs, callbacks, etc.) instead of being
    restricted to command-line arguments and file descriptors. It also
    simplifies debugging in that there will no longer be 2
    inter-communicating processes to deal with, only 1.