Brief article on benchmarks of Python repository with leading DVCSen

[Nicholas Allen]

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> 
> I think this is trying to paper over the problem rather than fix it.
> The problem is that the initial download (i.e. a clone over the network)
> is slow.  Lightweight checkouts and stacked branches can reduce the
> pain, but with some significant downsides in terms of the
> provided functionality.
> But there's no reason why the initial checkout can't be as fast as under
> other DVCS.

Yes of course. I'm not saying the initial download should not be as fast
as other DVCS. Even if it were this cache would be a good feature. I
can't imagine that the initial clone of a large project would be fast in
any DVCS. Sure faster than Bazaar maybe but not fast. Cloning Mozilla or
the Linux kernel for example will always take long even if you use git
(just because of the shear amount of data that needs to be transferred
over the network).

The point of the cache is to add a bit of intelligence to Bazaar. Just
like my web browser will use the cache to go back to recently viewed
pages to speed up performance.

Users will often branch some remote location if they try to mimic an SVN
style workflow and they probably won't have setup a shared repository
first. They usually do a full clone of the project at some point and so
they have nearly all the revisions locally. Someone who branches a
remote location should not download those tens of thousands of revisions
all over again when they are already sitting there somewhere on their
hard drive. Doing it once is bad enough in any DVCS so if Bazaar can
prevent that whenever possible that would be great.

It would enable users to think just like they do in other VCS without
requiring them to know too much about Bazaar and would also give the
user much more flexibility in where they put their branches.

This solution is complementary to any speed improvements for a clone
over the network and not something I think should be done instead of that.

Nick


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