Re: Smart fetch via HTTP?

Hi,

On Thu, 17 May 2007, Martin Langhoff wrote:

On 5/16/07, Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

On Wed, 16 May 2007, Martin Langhoff wrote:

quoted

Do the indexes have enough info to use them with http ranges? It'd be
chunkier than a smart protocol, but it'd still work with dumb servers.

It would not be really performant, would it? Besides, not all Web servers
speak HTTP/1.1...

Performant compared to downloading a huge packfile to get 10% of it?
Sure! It'd probably take a few trips, and you'd end up fetching 20% of
the file, still better than 100%.

Don't forget that those 10% probably do not do you the favour to be in 
large chunks. Chances are that _every_ _single_ wanted object is separate 
from the others.

quoted

Besides, not all Web servers speak HTTP/1.1...

Are there any interesting webservers out there that don't? Hand-rolled 
purpose-built webservers often don't but those don't serve files, they 
serve web apps. When it comes to serving files, any webserver that is 
supported (security-wise) these days is HTTP/1.1.

And for services like SF.net it'd be a safe low-cpu way of serving git
files. 'cause the git protocol is quite expensive server-side (io+cpu)
as we've seen with kernel.org. Being really smart with a cgi is
probably going to be expensive too.

It's probably better and faster than relying on a feature which does not 
exactly help.

Ciao,
Dscho