[darcs-users] EOL for darcs-1 repository format [was: soc final report]

[Nathan Gray]

On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 09:04:56PM +1000, Trent W. Buck wrote:
> When can/should we EOL the darcs-1 repository format?

We cannot switch to hashed nor darcs-2 format because we have
very large repositories.  We are patiently waiting for the
hashed-storage work to change the structure of the pristine cache
from all files in a single directory into some kind of hierarchy.

The benchmarking I did on our repos suggested that some commands
would take a couple times longer on a hashed repository.

I am very grateful to Petr for his work on hashed storage as a
possible solution for large repositories.

I am also concerned, as Zooko pointed out, that switching to
darcs-2 format will be very inconvenient.  When we get to that
point, I have to make sure that the new format is better than the
old format, in quality as well as speed.  I do not want to
disrupt the lives of all our programmers without some pretty
obvious benefits.

I also believe it would be very nice if a repo that is being
converted could get hints from already converted clones (see
issue1040).  That would make the whole conversion process less
daunting.

-kolibrie