From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
To: Jing Xue <jingxue@digizenstudio.com>
Cc: Al Boldi <a1426z@gawab.com>,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: git guidance
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:19:58 -0800 (PST) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.0.9999.0711290810170.8458@woody.linux-foundation.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20071129105220.v40i22q4gw4cgoso@intranet.digizenstudio.com>
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007, Jing Xue wrote:
>
> By the way, the only SCM I have worked with that tries to mount its
> repository (or a view on top of it) as a file system is ClearCase with
> its dynamic views. And, between the buggy file system implementation,
> the intrusion on workflow, and the lack of scalability, at least in
> the organization I worked for, it turned out to be a horrible,
> horrible, horrible idea.
Doing a read-only mount setup tends to be pretty easy, but it's largely
pointless except for specialty uses. Ie it's obviously not useful for
actual *development*, but it can be useful for some other cases.
For example, a read-only revctrl filesystem can be a _very_ useful thing
for test-farms, where you may have hundreds of clients that run tests on
possibly different versions at the same time. In situations like that, the
read-only mount can actually often be done as a user-space NFS server on
some machine.
The advantage is that you don't need to export close to infinite amounts
of versions from a "real" filesystem, or make the clients have their own
copies. And if you do it as a user-space NFS server (or samba, for that
matter), it's even portable, unlike many other approaches. The read-only
part also makes 99% of all the complexity go away, and it turns out to be
a fairly easy exercise to do.
So I don't think the filesystem approach is _wrong_ per se. But yes, doing
it read-write is almost invariably a big mistake. On operatign systems
that support a "union mount" approach, it's likely much better to have a
read-only revctl thing, and then over-mount a regular filesystem on top of
it.
Trying to make it read-write from the revctl engine standpoint is almost
certainly totally insane.
Linus
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2007-11-29 16:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 53+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2007-11-29 15:52 git guidance Jing Xue
2007-11-29 16:19 ` Linus Torvalds [this message]
2007-12-01 6:50 ` Al Boldi
2007-12-04 22:21 ` Phillip Susi
2007-12-07 17:35 ` Al Boldi
2007-12-06 18:24 ` Andreas Ericsson
2007-12-07 18:55 ` Al Boldi
2007-12-06 20:22 ` Johannes Schindelin
2007-12-07 4:37 ` Al Boldi
2007-12-07 8:40 ` Andreas Ericsson
2007-12-07 10:53 ` Al Boldi
2007-12-07 11:47 ` Jakub Narebski
2007-12-07 19:04 ` Al Boldi
2007-12-07 19:36 ` Valdis.Kletnieks
2007-12-07 22:07 ` Luke Lu
2007-12-08 4:56 ` Al Boldi
2007-12-08 5:16 ` Valdis.Kletnieks
2007-12-08 10:41 ` Al Boldi
2007-12-08 11:13 ` Johannes Schindelin
2007-12-07 12:30 ` Andreas Ericsson
2007-12-07 21:17 ` david
2007-12-07 22:00 ` Björn Steinbrink
2007-12-06 21:46 ` Phillip Susi
2007-12-08 6:33 ` Martin Langhoff
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2007-11-27 22:33 Tilman Schmidt
2007-11-27 22:54 ` J. Bruce Fields
2007-11-27 22:55 ` Kristoffer Ericson
2007-11-27 23:52 ` Willy Tarreau
2007-11-28 0:43 ` Kristoffer Ericson
2007-11-28 0:49 ` Randy Dunlap
2007-11-28 12:49 ` Al Boldi
2007-11-28 13:45 ` Rogan Dawes
[not found] ` <Pine.LNX.4.64.0711281545170.27959@racer.site>
2007-11-28 17:14 ` Al Boldi
2007-11-28 18:14 ` Johannes Schindelin
2007-11-28 18:30 ` Al Boldi
2007-11-28 18:41 ` Jakub Narebski
2007-11-29 5:27 ` Al Boldi
2007-11-29 12:57 ` Kyle Moffett
2007-11-28 13:38 ` Tilman Schmidt
2007-11-28 21:20 ` Willy Tarreau
2007-11-28 11:23 ` Tilman Schmidt
2007-11-28 12:31 ` Kristoffer Ericson
2007-11-27 23:20 ` Jan Engelhardt
2007-11-28 15:15 ` Dave Quigley
2007-11-28 15:57 ` Tilman Schmidt
2007-11-28 16:37 ` Dave Quigley
2007-11-28 19:10 ` willem
2007-11-28 19:18 ` Dave Quigley
2007-11-28 23:22 ` Haavard Skinnemoen
2007-11-29 12:45 ` Tilman Schmidt
2007-11-29 13:03 ` Haavard Skinnemoen
2007-11-28 7:41 ` Arkadiusz Miskiewicz
2007-11-29 12:51 ` Tilman Schmidt
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