Re: [PATCH] pack-objects: Print a message describing the number of threads for packing

From: Brandon Casey <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil>
Date: Feb 26, 2008, 15:53 UTC
Message-ID: <47C435DC.2070508@nrlssc.navy.mil>
In-Reply-To: <20080226074933.GA3485@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 08:12:58PM -0600, Brandon Casey wrote:
> 
>> +	if (progress)
>> +		fprintf(stderr, "Using %d pack threads.\n",
>> +			delta_search_threads);
> 
> I just noticed that this was in next. Do we really need to display this
> message? A considerable amount of discussion went into reducing git's
> chattiness and clutter during push and fetch, and I feel like this is a
> step backwards (yes, I know most people won't see it if they don't build
> with THREADED_DELTA_SEARCH).
> 
> Can we show it only if threads != 1? Only if we auto-detected the number
> of threads and it wasn't 1?

I like the message and thought it was useful especially for non-developers.

Even if the number of threads was not auto-detected, it is a confirmation that the number of threads used is the number of threads configured.

For example, it seems easy to do this:

	git config pack.thread 4
	git repack

The user would immediately know something was wrong when they saw the message "Using 1 pack threads" instead of the "4" they thought they configured. Also, since it's only printed in the THREADED_DELTA_SEARCH case, it's also a confirmation that this option was indeed used for a particular build of git.

Mainly, I thought it was a harmless message that other users would "enjoy" seeing, but if others disagree, I won't argue. Notice I quoted "enjoy" to emphasize it.

I'd also say that if the message is too noisy in the "user explicitly assigned number of threads" case, then it's just as noisy in the "auto assign" case, so just remove the message completely.

We're saying:

If I set pack.threads to 4, I know git is using 4 threads to repack since I told it to use 4 threads. I don't need to see a noisy message telling me so.

If I set pack.threads to 0, I know git is using 4 threads to repack since I have 4 cpus. I don't need to see a noisy message telling me so.

-brandon