[darcs-users] [Haskell-cafe] Re: poll: how can we help you contribute to darcs?

[Anatoly Yakovenko]

> Interesting.  Is your experience with darcs just with the GHC repository?
> Except for the darcs1 exponential merge problem, I would be surprised if
> darcs2 repositories are more than twice as slow as git for common
> operations.  I know git is faster and I know darcs annotate is painfully
> slow; but I think that's mainly because the git algorithms have better
> asymptotic complexities at the cost of user visible complexity and cognitive
> load.  Darcs was meant to be simple for the user.  Do you feel that it's
> complex because people discuss patche theory and debate about how to
> rigorously define it?

theory doesn't scare me.  i am using haskell after all, so i am used
to reading long winded papers.

> What is a simple thing you want to do that darcs is not stable for?  With
> the exception of windows and ghc, darcs stable releases has always been rock
> solid for me, so I would like to hear examples of what you mean.

So I use git at work on top of a p4 repository with maybe 10k files,
binaries, etc..  Its pretty big, 1.3g total.  We use p4 as the
official vcs at work, but I prefer git to checkpoint and sync my work
between lots of machines without actually having to be on the damned
vpn.  So i basically branch and merge etc.. and sometimes merge from
p4 into my git repo and propagate those changes out through pushes to
all my other machines.  So by a simple vcs, i mean something that can
just branch and merge, and do it fast without ever corrupting my
history.  I could care less about cherry picking, checksum
consistency, etc.. and all the other stuff that makes darcs special.

>> Maybe if you can gut darcs into a really simple and basic vcs that is
>> fast and really really stable, and allow plugins that wont compromise
>> your repository then I would gladly use it and contribute in areas
>> where i can improve it.
>
> I thought darcs was already a really simple and basic vcs that is really
> realy stable...So you're just asking for faster and a plugin system, right?
> :-)  (Obviously you don't agree, and I like to tease, but that's fine your
> feedback is what we want so we can improve.)

I tried to use darcs maybe 1.5 years ago, and I found that darcs is
not to happy about getting killed mid operation, and will sometimes
get completely screwed up or deadlocked after merges.

> What would plugins do?  Each darcs command has a mechanism for automatically
> running a script before or after the command.  Or maybe you have no
> complaint about the current flexibility and want a more secure way to run
> the scripts?

by plugins i just mean keep the core simple and stable and fast, and
stick all the other stuff somewhere else in a way that wont break and
slow down the core functions.  I dont care if they are actually
dynamically loaded plugins or things you turn on and off durring
compilation, or just not use at all if you don't want them, BUT, i
would like those things not to screw up my repo if i do end up trying
them.