Re: [PATCH] rev-list: add "--full-objects" flag.

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: Jul 10, 2005, 05:11 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0507092206480.17536@g5.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <m1pstrr8k1.fsf@ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com>

On Sat, 9 Jul 2005, Eric W. Biederman wrote:

> 
> I assume the problem with the mirror it model was simply there were
> to many objects?

Yes.

Show 8 quoted lines

> > And then you really can use just rsync or wget or ncftpget or anything
> > else that has a "fetch recursively, optimizing existing objects" mode.
> 
> Sane.  But with an intelligent fetcher and a little extra information a
> dumb server should still be able to not fetch branches we care nothing
> about.  I think that extra information is simply commit object graph and
> which packs those commit objects are in.  I assume the commit graph
> information will be fairly modest.

Well, what I'd hope for is actually that eventually "webgit" will have some machine-parseable sub-tree, and then you can have this kind of thing generated automatically.

But a _truly_ dumb server (ie one with no CGI at all, just "raw data", you really end up with just effectively rsyncing it. Yes, you could create a new "commit index file" every time you push, and maybe it's worth it, but on the other hand, what's wrong with just rsyncing it all and parsing it locally instead?

People who use it for major development would all try to get the smart client, even if it's "just" some webgit extension thing..

Dumb servers work, they just won't do any selective stuff. Big deal. That's why they are dumb.

		Linus