Subject: Re: [PATCH/RFC 0/3] --seed as an alias for --dissociate --reference

From: Jeff King <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 01:06:45 -0400

On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 10:01:49PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> >   1. Assuming that "seed" is a reasonable verb for this concept, is
> >      "--seed=<repo>" OK for the option?  Would "--seed-from=<repo>" be
> >      better? (Also, the response "bleh, seed is a terrible name" is
> >      fine, too, but only if accompanied by your own suggestion :) ).
> 
> The seed may not even have to be a repository.  A bundle file hosted
> on CDN that is reachable via (resumable) wget would be another good
> way to prime the well, and it would fit with the above framework
> nicely.  Grab it, fetch from it into a temporary hierarchy and then
> run "fetch --prune" against the repository you originally wanted to
> clone from.

Yeah, I was just looking over the list archives for the past few months,
for things I had marked as "to read and think about later"[1]. That's
how I recalled our prior discussion on --dissociate.

Anyway, I happened upon the "prime the clone from a bundle" concept
being discussed again recently, and had the same thought. We already
treat local bundles as a possible source for fetching/cloning. Once upon
a time I had some patches that would let you clone straight from a
bundle over http (it just spooled to disk, which is not the _most_
efficient way to do it, but trying to massage the bundle straight into a
packfile[2] ends up every complex very quickly). I should resurrect those
patches.

-Peff

[1] My "think about later" mailbox has ~5000 messages in it, some of
    which are from 2010. I think I may need to just declare bankruptcy.

[2] There's that word again.