Some timings using bzr

[David Ingamells]

Matt Nordhoff wrote:
> David Ingamells wrote:
>
> <huge snip>
>
>   
>> Further I
>> do not know if the dirstate-tags repository format is a good choice. It
>> was the default when the repos was made in January this year. I find the
>> information in the manuals very uninformative regarding the benefits of
>> the various formats that are listed in (e.g.) the reference for the
>> upgrade command.
>>     
 > dirstate-tags is not a good choice. pack-0.92 is the current default 
format and is much better.
 > ...
 > pack-0.92 is generally much, much better, though that might be 
different with NFS.

Matt,
thanks for your answer.

The repository in question is a shared repos with a number of branches 
in it. It was made when bzr 0.98 (I think it was) was the latest 
released version. I used the default setting for bzr init-repo then. 
Now, as you say, bzr 1.5 has pack-0.92 as the default. Are there any 
issues I should be aware of in doing a bzr upgrade?
What is the best way to update the repos? Can I update one branch and 
leave the remainder alone? Must I do the upgrade at the shared repos level?

My I request that maybe someone who knows what they are talking about 
(certainly not me!) can add/improve the relevant sections in the user 
reference manual e.g. the "Storage Formats" section (aka "bzr help 
formats"). For example dirstate-tags' description says "new" and 
"improved" - which maybe it was when the comment was written, but now 
with several newer and further-improved formats available that 
description is just confusing.

 > As its name suggests, it requires bzr 0.92,
 > while dirstate-tags only requires 0.15. But those are both quite old,
 > and you should always use the latest version anyway, which you are, so
 > it's moot.

It says a lot about the pace of development in the bazaar project that 
you use the term "quite old" to refer to something that was the default 
only 6 months ago! You say pack-0.92 is also quite old - is there a 
newer and even better format that is likely to become the default in the 
near future - e.g. in 1.6?