Re: [PATCH] multi item packed files

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, Krzysztof Halasa wrote:

I really think the argument that "you can use filesystem feature XYZ" is bogus.

I know that I'm not willing to switch filesystems on a whim. I suspect nobody else is either. I'm not going to create a loopback filesystem just for git, it's just too much pain.

And dammit, if I'm the original author and likely biggest power-user, and _I_ can't be bothered to use special filesystems, then who can? Nobody.

This is why I absolutely do not believe in arguments like "if your filesystem doesn't do tail packing, you shouldn't use it" or "if your don't have name hashing enabled in your filesystem it's broken".

I'm perfectly willing to optimize for the common case, but that's as far as it goes. I do not want to make fundamental design decisions that depend on the target filesystem having some particular feature.

(I'll happily make decisions that say that the target _OS_ has to have a particular feature, though. I'll require a sane base-level for functionality, but not something like filesystem details).

			Linus