git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: auto gc again

From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date
Mar 19, 2008, 21:27 UTC
Message-ID
<7vd4pq2ymo.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To
<20080318180118.GC17940@kernel.dk>
Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com> writes:
Show 7 quoted lines
> But the new magic is really beside the point. Doing this 'for you' is
> extremely annoying behaviour. I often work on my notebook, so disk is
> both slow and battery is precious. I DON'T want gc to run automatically,
> EVER. Not on repos I have had going for ages, not on ones I just cloned.
> Please bury this silly policy and replace it with a printf() telling me
> that I may increase my performance by running git gc. Don't just do it.
> git does not know better.

Well, earlier, git used to be "kick-ass fast, flexible and powerful if you knew what you are doing, and if you don't, then you are forever lost" type of a system, and I think early adopters even took pride in saying so.

Being in the scene myself from early on, I certainly sympathise with that feeling, and sometimes when a newcomer starts making noises about dumbing git down without understanding implications (e.g. hiding or removing the index), I have to resist the urge to say "you need to learn certain new concepts that do not even exist counterparts in earlier crap systems you are used to. If you feel you are confused, that's your problem. Get enlightened first." I rarely say that out loud, to be more diplomatic, though.

But judging from the fact that some kernel folks talking about having a 7GB kernel repository, I think supposedly early adoptors may not really know what they are doing, and some automation, if done correctly would be a good thing.

Having said that, I am not sure how the auto gc is triggering for your (presumably reasonably well maintained) repository that has only small number of loose objects. I haven't seen auto-gc annoyance myself (and git.git is not the only project I have my git experience with), and Linus also said he hasn't seen breakages.

I think we did have a few patches to the area recently and we should not rule out the possibility that we broke the criteria "gc --auto" kicks in.

Previous: Jens AxboeNext: Linus Torvalds
Message 22 of 30 in “auto gc again”
  1. Jens AxboeMar 18, 2008
  2. Linus TorvaldsMar 18, 2008
  3. Jens AxboeMar 18, 2008
  4. Jens AxboeMar 18, 2008
  5. Linus TorvaldsMar 18, 2008
  6. Jens AxboeMar 18, 2008
  7. Johannes SchindelinMar 19, 2008
  8. Jens AxboeMar 19, 2008
  9. Johannes SchindelinMar 19, 2008
  10. Jens AxboeMar 20, 2008
  11. Nicolas PitreMar 19, 2008
  12. Jens AxboeMar 19, 2008
  13. Nicolas PitreMar 19, 2008
  14. Jens AxboeMar 20, 2008
  15. Junio C HamanoMar 20, 2008
  16. Jens AxboeMar 20, 2008
  17. Brandon CaseyMar 19, 2008
  18. builtin-gc.c: allow disabling all auto-gc'ing by assigning 0 to gc.autoBrandon Casey, Mar 19, 2008
  19. Teemu LikonenMar 20, 2008
  20. Nicolas PitreMar 19, 2008
  21. Jens AxboeMar 20, 2008
  22. Junio C HamanoMar 19, 2008
  23. Linus TorvaldsMar 19, 2008
  24. Junio C HamanoMar 19, 2008
  25. Nicolas PitreMar 19, 2008
  26. Junio C HamanoMar 19, 2008
  27. Nicolas PitreMar 20, 2008
  28. Junio C HamanoMar 20, 2008
  29. Nicolas PitreMar 20, 2008
  30. Junio C HamanoMar 20, 2008

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.