[Gnu-arch-users] On configs and huge source trees

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Ollivier Robert <address@hidden> writes:

> configs are not the way to manage big trees, they are a minimalist
> workaround (and not a satisfying one at that).

In fact, I'm fairly convinced that configs are more than a workaround.
A good question, in fact, is not whether configs are a good solution to
the huge tree performance problem or not: the question is "are huge
source trees advisable?"

As someone mentioned, GCC could certainly be split into a number of
projects.  This could have a positive impact on code quality -- the APIs
would have to be well-thought, things would have to be "librarified" as
Tom would say, which means that various components could be untangled
and made independent and reusable.  The same goes for Linux: why do all
these drivers, filesystems, etc. _have to_ be within the kernel tree?

Of course, one may argue that it's not the job of the revision control
tool to advocate a way to organize projects.

Arch' configs help keep track of dependencies, more than working around
a performance problem.

Thanks,
Ludovic.