2.0 upgrade experiences

[Andrew Cowie]

On Thu, 2009-08-13 at 16:59 +1000, Robert Collins wrote:
> One thing we could do is, on upgrade:
>  - pack automatically (we do this)
>  - fsync()
>  - clean obsoleted packs.

That seems very nice!

++

If you could tell user something while all this is going on, they won't
mind how long it takes. After all, who cares? It's a deliberate one-time
operation. Deleting files takes a while on certain filesystems? No
problem.

And (personal bias) I don't care how long it *or any other operation*
takes [within limits that Bazaar is already well within] so long as it's
not sitting there not telling me what it's doing.

Which is why I am so persistently vocal about how useless the ASCII art
progress bar is; it wastes horizontal space, sits there, doesn't tell
you anything useful (other than always being "about half way done",
subjectively) and meanwhile lots of possibly interesting diagnostic
and/or progress messages are flashing by in the 20 or 30 character wide
space that is left. I've always wondered what those messages are, but
they're only there for a few tenths of a second. I really don't feel Git
is any faster. Of course it isn't — there's about the same amount of
network traffic to pass — but it sure makes it *look* like it's
intelligently busy; it's telling me all sorts of incomprehensible stuff
about deltifying packs and god knows what else. But it certainly gives
it an [user acceptable] excuse to be sitting there not doing anything
[or, that is, heh, the user sitting there not doing anything while they
wait].

Marketing.

Note that I was able to read about "deltifying" et al after the fact
because they didn't clear the line after moving on; they wrote a \n
first. Otherwise it'd be like Bazaar's ephemeral progress messages; I'd
have no clue what they were up to.

This is, incidentally, a lot easier than the 2 line status bar idea we
had a few months ago - which would be quite cool if someone decides to
do it, but non-trivial, as was pointed out at the time. That being the
case, I'd suggest it's time to accept the loss and start printing \n
characters.

Sorry. Off-thread, but moderately on-topic in so far as making 2.0 rock
in the eyes of PEBKAC users.

All the best,

AfC
Sydney

-- 
Andrew Frederick Cowie

Operational Dynamics is an operations and engineering consultancy
focusing on IT strategy, organizational architecture, systems
review, and effective procedures for change management: enabling
successful deployment of mission critical information technology in
enterprises, worldwide.

http://www.operationaldynamics.com/

Sydney   New York   Toronto   London
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