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Date:      Mon, 15 Nov 2004 02:44:24 +0100
From:      Benjamin Lutz <benlutz@datacomm.ch>
To:        freebsd-ports@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: HEADSUP: INDEX[-5] files were removed from CVS.
Message-ID:  <200411150244.27804.benlutz@datacomm.ch>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0411141649030.6593-100000@pancho>
References:  <Pine.LNX.4.44.0411141649030.6593-100000@pancho>

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> 1. make fetchindex will get you an INDEX that is only a day or so old.
>    Formerly, it was weeks or months old.  (The fact that any of the
>    tools actually allowed, e.g., port upgrades with one so out-of-date
>    was more blind luck than anything else).

Oh, didn't know that. That's actually very nice.

> 2. Having INDEX in CVS creates immense repository bloat, which has
>    other side-effect (bandwidth load on the cvsup servers, for an
>    example).  If you look at the CVSweb page for INDEX and click on
>    'diff two versions', you'll see just how immense the diffs got.

> 3. One could argue that, philosophically, that anytime you check a
>    database into a source control system, one is already doing
>    something that is philosophically wrong -- you're using a tool for
>    a purpose that it is not designed for and, at best, ill-suited for.

Thinking about it, keeping the INDEX up to date should be trivial. INDEX=20
only gets updated when a port is changed, and only those lines affected=20
by that port can be changed in the INDEX. Of course, you might now say=20
that the bloat will be the same, it'll just be distributed into much=20
smaller parts. Aren't we running into the same problem though with the=20
vuxml port? About every time I browse freshports, I see at least one=20
vuxml update.

> There is an INDEX tinderbox that is feeding 'make fetchindex'.  It runs
> continually.
[...]=20
> So the idea of all this was to get away from 'INDEX file that works
> but is only updated occasionally' to 'INDEX file that works and is
> always up-to-date'.

Alright, I see that this is actually a very nice solution. A question,=20
however: are there mirrors available, in case the server is not=20
reachable? (Besides, it didn't seem very fast earlier - just tested now,=20
it's much faster.)

Personally, I can see now how having a dedicated INDEX server is more=20
efficient than keeping it in CVS, however my first reaction was negative,=20
mostly because of the lack of information (the HEADSUP was very terse,=20
and the first few mails in this thread weren't that insightful either).=20
Had you held the discussion in public, I'd have been able to follow the=20
thread (I'm sure all pros and cons were mentioned), which would have been=20
helpful. Granted, by making the discussion private, you avoid the=20
bikeshed problem. May I ask then that such threads are made at least=20
world-readable?=20

Benjamin

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