Re: [ANNOUNCE] Git v1.8.4-rc4

> Performance, Internal Implementation, etc.
>
> * On Cygwin, we used to use our own lstat(2) emulation that is
>   allegedly faster than the platform one in codepaths where some of
>   the information it returns did not matter, but it started to bite
>   us in a few codepaths where the trick it uses to cheat does show
>   breakages. This emulation has been removed and we use the native
>   lstat(2) emulation supplied by Cygwin now.
>
> * The function attributes extensions are used to catch mistakes in
>   use of our own variadic functions that use NULL sentinel at the end
>   (i.e. like execl(3)) and format strings (i.e. like printf(3)).
>
> * The code to allow configuration data to be read from in-tree blob
>   objects is in.  This may help working in a bare repository and
>   submodule updates.
>
> * Fetching between repositories with many refs employed O(n^2)
>   algorithm to match up the common objects, which has been corrected.
>
> * The original way to specify remote repository using .git/branches/
>   used to have a nifty feature.  The code to support the feature was
>   still in a function but the caller was changed not to call it 5
>   years ago, breaking that feature and leaving the supporting code
>   unreachable.  The dead code has been removed.
>
> * "git pack-refs" that races with new ref creation or deletion have
>   been susceptible to lossage of refs under right conditions, which
>   has been tightened up.
>
> * We read loose and packed rerferences in two steps, but after