On Wed, 20 Apr 2005, Linus Torvalds wrote:

quoted

I was considering using a chunked representation for *all* files (not just
blobs), which would avoid the original 'trees must reference other trees
or they become too large' issue -- and maybe the performance issue you're
referring to, as well?

No. The most common index file operation is reading, and that's the one
that has to be _fast_. And it is - it's a single "mmap" and some parsing.

OK, sure.  But how 'bout chunking trees?  Are you grown happy with the new 
trees-reference-other-trees paradigm, or is there a deep longing in your 
heart for the simplicity of 'trees-reference-blobs-period'?  I'm fairly
certain that chunking could get you the space-savings you need without 
multi-level trees, if the simplicity of that is still appealing.

Not necessarily for rev.1 of the chunking code, but I'm curious as to 
whether it's still of interest at all.  I don't know exactly how far
ingrained multilevel trees have become since they were adopted.
  --scott

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