Re: git branch performance problem?

From: Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwenn@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 11, 2007, 02:26 UTC
Message-ID: <f329bf540710101926vedf8b19p52e3eeb193203d03@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.0.999.0710101610230.20690@woody.linux-foundation.org>

2007/10/10, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>:

> IOW: alternates are dangerous. A shared object directory is dangerous. You
> should basically only do it under very controlled circumstances, and
> otherwise you should use either hardlinks or if you want added safety,
> totally separate repositories.

I recall reading a few months ago that it was "clone -l" that gave you the jeebies, rather than "clone -s".

> So the rule really is: never *ever* do anything but fast-forward in a repo
>[..]

Methinks this is all too difficult. I will use clone -l henceforth. Is there any reason to prefer -s over -l? Given your lengthy exposition on the dangers of alternates, I would say this is a features that deserves to be buried or at least deemphasized in the documentation.

For cherrypicking convenience, I would still appreciate it if there was a mechanism similar to alternates that would allow me to view objects from an alternate repo; objects found through this mechanism should never be assumed to be present in the database, of course.

-- 
Han-Wen Nienhuys - hanwen@xs4all.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen