Brief article on benchmarks of Python repository with leading DVCSen

[John Arbash Meinel]

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John Yates wrote:
> Nicholas Allen writes:
> 
>> Are you implying that branching into your home directory would be
>> too much of a restriction imposed by Bazaar?
> 
> This is a very *nix-centric argument.  It assumes a well entrenched
> notion of one's home directory and a habit of working beneath it.
> The subtle suggestion is that if one finds a point sufficiently high
> in the name space it will dominate all subsequent branches.  Already
> earlier in this thread someone pointed out that that logic fails if
> one branches into /tmp.
> 
> Paul Moore has indicated that he is working on a Windows box.  There
> users tend to have much less tendency to operate beneath a "home"
> directory.  More importantly with drive letters and UNCs the name
> space lacks an obvious root.
> 
> /john
> 

I'll also mention that in many cases /tmp is a different filesystem. And
as such, branching into /tmp will not be cheap for other system either.

Similarly, branching C: => D: is not cheap, because you cannot hardlink
between filesystems.

It is a bit extreme, but this is one case where we actually could have
an advantage. If you created a shared writable repo at /, then on Linux
all branches would use the same shared repository, regardless of
filesystem they are on. (I certainly don't advocate it, but mostly want
to point out that hardlinks don't solve everything either.)

Other points to consider. What if you're branching from multiple
*remote* locations.

hg clone http://one
hg clone http://two

Is *not* cheap, as you have to do

hg clone http://one
hg clone one two
cd two
hg pull http://two

Versus with bzr, branching from remote into a local branch still shares
the repository.

While it is true that you don't always work underneath a specific
directory, I think most people do. That is sort of what directories and
directory structure is all about.

John
=:->

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