Re: [RFC v1] Add virtual file system settings and hook proc

> On Sun, Nov 04, 2018 at 07:34:01AM +0100, Duy Nguyen wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 9:53 PM Ben Peart <peartben@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> It's more than a dynamic sparse-checkout because the same list is also
>>> used to exclude any file/folder not listed.  That means any file not
>>> listed won't ever be updated by git (like in 'checkout' for example) so
>>> 'stale' files could be left in the working directory.  It also means git
>>> won't find new/untracked files unless they are specifically added to the
>>> list.
>>
>> OK. I'm not at all interested in carrying maintenance burden for some
>> software behind closed doors. I could see values in having a more
>> flexible sparse checkout but this now seems like very tightly designed
>> for GVFS. So unless there's another use case (preferably open source)
>> for this, I don't think this should be added in git.git.
> 
> I should point out that VFS for Git is an open-source project and will
> likely have larger use than just at Microsoft.  There are both Windows
> and Mac clients and there are plans for a Linux client as well.
> Ideally, it would work with an unmodified upstream Git, which is (I
> assume) why Ben is sending this series.
> 
> Personally, I don't love the current name used in this series.  I don't
> see this patch as introducing a virtual file system in the Unix sense of
> that word, and I think calling it that in Git core will be confusing to
> Unix users.  I would prefer to see it as a hook (maybe called
> "sparse-checkout" or "sparse-exclude"; better names are okay), and
> simply turn it on based on whether or not there's an appropriate hook
> file there and whether core.sparseCheckout is on (or possibly with
> hook.sparseExclude or something).  With a design more like that, I don't
> see a problem with it in principle.
>