Re: [PATCHv4 08/12] Teach the notes lookup code to parse notes trees with various fanout schemes

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

I half-agree, the code should decide which fanout scheme to use, but 
_only_ when producing new notes.

I imagine that it could merge the existing notes, and try to make sure 
that there are no more blobs in a given subtree than a certain threshold; 
if that threshold is reached, it could fan-out using 2-digit subtrees, 
merging what needs merging (by concatenation) along the way.

The natural precedence of shallower paths/longer basenames should cope 
well with that (i.e. prefer to show abcd/... over ab/cd/...).

Oh, if the plan for merging the trees is such that it takes care of
"multiple notes pointing at the same commit" issues like you outline, then
I can see it would work nicely.

At that point, fan-out would become merely an implementation detail,
something the end user never needs to worry about, just like what base
object is chosen to represent another object in a packfile.

Hi,

On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

I half-agree, the code should decide which fanout scheme to use, but 
_only_ when producing new notes.

I imagine that it could merge the existing notes, and try to make sure 
that there are no more blobs in a given subtree than a certain 
threshold; if that threshold is reached, it could fan-out using 
2-digit subtrees, merging what needs merging (by concatenation) along 
the way.

The natural precedence of shallower paths/longer basenames should cope 
well with that (i.e. prefer to show abcd/... over ab/cd/...).

Oh, if the plan for merging the trees is such that it takes care of 
"multiple notes pointing at the same commit" issues like you outline, 
then I can see it would work nicely.

At that point, fan-out would become merely an implementation detail, 
something the end user never needs to worry about, just like what base 
object is chosen to represent another object in a packfile.

Oh, that's where you're coming from!  Now I understand your concerns; it 
never occurred to me that the user should be encouraged to add notes to 
the tree herself.  I was always under the impression that the fan-out is 
an implementation detail best hidden from the user.

Ciao,
Dscho