[darcs-users] Re: Limits of Darcs (the whole Linux kernel?)

[Mark Stosberg]

On 2004-11-05, Samuel Tardieu <sam at rfc1149.net> wrote:
>>>>>> "David" == David Roundy <droundy at abridgegame.org> writes:
>
>David> You could either make more memory available for darcs, or
>David> compile darcs with the --enable-antimemoize option.  The
>David> initial record is the command which most stresses darcs'
>David> memory, as it requires holding the entire tree in parsed and in
>David> memory.
>
> So this brings an immediate question: why does darcs need to hold the
> entire tree in memory at anytime?

Another related question is:

Can the initial import be "special cased" to improve performance? It's seem me that it should
be possible because:

- darcs should be able to tell that the state of the repository is empty
  (or can be given a hint). 

- As an initial import, there is nothing in the repository to conflict
  with. The result of applying this initial big patch seems obvious. 

 From a marketing or "new user" perspective, this is rather important to
address, because it's one of the first impressions people have with
darcs.

	Mark