Re: [RFC PATCH] repack: rewrite the shell script in C.

On 08/14/2013 07:25 PM, Martin Fick wrote:

I have been holding off a bit on expressing this opinion too 
because I don't want to squash someone's energy to improve 
things, and because I am not yet a git dev, but since it was 
brought up anyway...

It's ok, if you knew a better topic to work on, I'd gladly switch over.
(Given it would be a good beginners topic.)

 
I can say that as a user, having git-repack as a shell 
script has been very valuable.  For example:  we have 
modified it for our internal use to no longer ever overwrite
new packfiles with the same name as the current packfile.  
This modification was relatively easy to do and see in shell 
script.  If this were C code I can't imagine having 
personally: 1) identified that there was an issue with the 
original git-repack (it temporarily makes objects 
unavailable) 2) made a simple custom fix to that policy.

Looking at the `git log -- git-repack.sh` the last commit is
from April 2012 and the commit before is 2011, so I assumed it
stable enough for porting over to C, as there is not much
modification going on. I'd be glad to include these changes
you're using into the rewrite or the shell script as of now.

The script really is mostly a policy script, and with the 
discussions happening in other threads about how to improve 
git gc, I think it is helpful to potentially be able to 
quickly modify the policies in this script, it makes it 
easier to prototype things.  Shell portability issues aside, 
this script is not a low level type of tool that I feel will 
benefit from being in C, I feel it will in fact be worse off 
in C,

So far I have been following the git mailing list, there are
people dreaming of 'everything in C' and apparently those, who
are ok with lots of shell code as well, 'because it's high level'.
I tend to follow the first group, dreaming of everything in C.
Thanks for pointing that out, if it really hurts people from using
git effectively, I'd rather not contribute this patch. But I'd like
to stress again, that the prototying should be done by now.

I asked for a todo wish list a few weeks ago, but got no real answer,
but rather: "Pick your choice and try to come up with good patches".
This is a good policy from the projects point of view (your choice
helps in doing good patches, and good patches do not need as much
review, hence the reviewing costs are low), so I also choose this topic.

-Martin

Stefan