From: Steven Grimm <koreth@midwinter.com>
To: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
Git Mailing List <git@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: People unaware of the importance of "git gc"?
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 01:50:04 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <46DE6DBC.30704@midwinter.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20070905074206.GA31750@artemis.corp>
Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> Well independently from the fact that one could suppose that users
> should use gc on their own, the big nasty problem with repacking is that
> it's really slow. And I just can't imagine git that I use to commit
> blazingly fast, will then be unavailable for a very long time (repacks
> on my projects -- that are not as big as the kernel but still -- usually
> take more than 10 to 20 seconds each).
>
What about kicking off a repack in the background at the ends of certain
commands? With an option to disable, of course. It could run at a low
priority and could even sleep a lot to avoid saturating the system's
disks -- since it'd be running asynchronously there should be no problem
if it takes longer to run.
Alternately, if it's possible to break the repack work up into chunks
that can be executed a bit at a time, you could do a small amount of
repacking very frequently (possibly still in the background) rather than
the whole thing at once. I suspect the nature of a repack, where you
presumably want everything loaded at once, would make that a challenge,
but it might not be impossible.
On the more general question...
IMO expecting end users to regularly perform what are essentially
database administration tasks (running git-gc is akin to rebuilding
indexes or packing tables on a DBMS) is naive. Heck, even database
administrators don't like to run database administration commands;
PostgreSQL added the "autovacuum" feature precisely because manual
periodic repacking (and the associated monitoring to figure out when to
do it) was too annoying for developers and DBAs. But you don't have to
look that far; anyone who has worked in IT can tell you horror stories
of users, including developers, whose computers have slowed to a crawl
because the users never bothered to defrag their hard disks. And that
affects *everything* the users do, not just version control operations!
It'll get worse as better UIs and tool integration become available and
git gains large numbers of users who are neither software developers nor
system administrators, and wouldn't know a packfile from a hole in the
ground. I'm talking web designers, graphic artists, mechanical
engineers, even managers and secretaries -- all of those people are in
git's ultimate target audience, even if it's not ready for them today.
None of them is going to be interested in doing random housekeeping
operations by hand, but they'll all appreciate a fast environment.
The fact that git sometimes stores your files individually in the .git
directory and sometimes bundles them together into big archives should
be an implementation detail that end-users don't have to worry about day
to day; git should do the right thing to remain fast under typical usage
scenarios, while leaving the plumbing exposed so people with atypical
usage can get their stuff done too.
-Steve
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2007-09-05 8:50 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 97+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2007-09-05 7:09 People unaware of the importance of "git gc"? Linus Torvalds
2007-09-05 7:21 ` Martin Langhoff
2007-09-05 7:37 ` Karl Hasselström
2007-09-05 7:30 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-05 7:26 ` Tomash Brechko
2007-09-05 8:13 ` Johan Herland
2007-09-05 8:39 ` Matthieu Moy
2007-09-05 8:41 ` Johan Herland
2007-09-05 8:47 ` David Kastrup
2007-09-05 8:51 ` Pierre Habouzit
2007-09-05 9:02 ` David Kastrup
2007-09-05 9:04 ` Matthieu Moy
2007-09-05 8:51 ` Wincent Colaiuta
2007-09-05 7:42 ` Pierre Habouzit
2007-09-05 8:16 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-05 8:50 ` Steven Grimm [this message]
[not found] ` <86ps0xcwxo.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz>
2007-09-05 9:07 ` Steven Grimm
2007-09-05 9:13 ` David Kastrup
2007-09-05 9:07 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-05 9:27 ` Martin Langhoff
2007-09-05 9:33 ` Matthieu Moy
2007-09-05 14:17 ` Johan De Messemaeker
2007-09-05 17:31 ` Matthieu Moy
2007-09-05 23:56 ` Jeff King
2007-09-05 9:13 ` David Kastrup
2007-09-05 9:14 ` Pierre Habouzit
2007-09-05 17:51 ` Nix
2007-09-05 18:14 ` Steven Grimm
2007-09-05 18:22 ` Nix
2007-09-05 18:54 ` Nicolas Pitre
2007-09-05 20:01 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-05 20:35 ` Nicolas Pitre
2007-09-05 21:14 ` Nix
2007-09-05 21:46 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-05 23:04 ` Nicolas Pitre
2007-09-05 23:42 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-06 0:27 ` Carlos Rica
2007-09-06 5:55 ` David Kastrup
2007-09-05 21:49 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-05 21:59 ` Invoke "git gc --auto" from commit, merge, am and rebase Junio C Hamano
2007-09-06 2:39 ` Shawn O. Pearce
2007-09-05 20:37 ` [PATCH] Invoke "git gc --auto" from "git add" and "git fetch" Junio C Hamano
[not found] ` <69b0c0350709051357ifa547aarfe3e0b36cf9be98f@mail.gmail.com>
2007-09-05 20:59 ` Fwd: " Govind Salinas
2007-09-06 12:02 ` Johannes Schindelin
2007-09-05 21:18 ` People unaware of the importance of "git gc"? Alex Riesen
2007-09-06 2:44 ` Russ Dill
2007-09-06 2:52 ` Shawn O. Pearce
2007-09-06 9:28 ` Andreas Ericsson
2007-09-06 2:45 ` Shawn O. Pearce
2007-09-06 2:49 ` Steven Grimm
2007-09-06 2:56 ` Shawn O. Pearce
2007-09-06 15:54 ` Johannes Schindelin
2007-09-06 17:49 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-06 18:15 ` Linus Torvalds
2007-09-06 18:29 ` Steven Grimm
2007-09-06 23:12 ` Subject: [PATCH] git-merge-pack Junio C Hamano
2007-09-06 23:35 ` Linus Torvalds
2007-09-07 0:51 ` Nicolas Pitre
2007-09-07 1:58 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-07 2:32 ` Nicolas Pitre
2007-09-07 4:07 ` Shawn O. Pearce
2007-09-07 4:43 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-08 9:50 ` [PATCH] make sha1_file.c::matches_pack_name() available to others Junio C Hamano
2007-09-08 10:01 ` [PATCH] pack-objects --repack-unpacked Junio C Hamano
2007-09-07 7:11 ` Subject: [PATCH] git-merge-pack Johannes Sixt
2007-09-07 7:34 ` Junio C Hamano
2007-09-07 7:24 ` Andy Parkins
2007-09-07 4:48 ` People unaware of the importance of "git gc"? Shawn O. Pearce
2007-09-07 10:12 ` Johannes Schindelin
2018-10-07 18:28 ` What's so special about objects/17/ ? Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2018-10-07 18:35 ` Johannes Sixt
2018-10-07 19:06 ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2018-10-07 22:39 ` Johannes Sixt
2018-10-08 0:54 ` Junio C Hamano
2018-10-07 19:46 ` Junio C Hamano
2018-10-07 20:07 ` Junio C Hamano
2018-10-08 19:17 ` Stefan Beller
2018-10-09 1:03 ` Junio C Hamano
2018-10-09 17:37 ` Stefan Beller
2018-10-10 1:10 ` Junio C Hamano
2018-10-10 19:08 ` Stefan Beller
2018-10-08 10:36 ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2018-10-09 1:07 ` Junio C Hamano
2018-10-09 17:40 ` Stefan Beller
2007-09-05 8:16 ` People unaware of the importance of "git gc"? David Kastrup
2007-09-05 16:47 ` Govind Salinas
2007-09-05 17:19 ` Carl Worth
2007-09-05 17:55 ` Jing Xue
2007-09-05 17:35 ` Steven Grimm
2007-09-05 18:28 ` Nix
2007-09-05 17:44 ` J. Bruce Fields
2007-09-05 18:46 ` Brandon Casey
2007-09-05 19:09 ` David Kastrup
2007-09-05 19:13 ` J. Bruce Fields
2007-09-05 19:43 ` David Kastrup
2007-09-05 19:20 ` Mike Hommey
2007-09-05 21:07 ` Alex Riesen
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