Matthieu Moy wrote:

quoted text
> "Martin Langhoff" <martin.langhoff@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Git tries to be smart in at least 2 ways that don't work with dump
>> protocols: it works locklessly (yet it performs atomic updates) and it
>> sends only the objects needed over the wire (saving a lot of
>> bandwidth).
>>
>> Using dumb protocols it's impossible to do either.

But git _can_ push over http protocol (with WebDAV), and http is a dumb
protocol, and over rsync (although it is deprecated).
 
quoted text
> That's not exactly true. You can't be as efficient with dumb protocols
> than you are with a dedicated protocol (something with some
> intelligence on both sides), but at least the second point you mention
> can be achieved with a dumb protocol, and bzr is a proof of existance.
> To read over HTTP, it uses ranges request, and to push over
> ftp/sftp/webdav, it appends new data to existing files (its ancestor,
> GNU Arch, also had a way to be network-efficient on dumb protocols).

If I understand correctly to read (fetch) over http and other dumb
protocols (like ftp), git uses two indices .git/info/refs
and .git/objects/info/packs which must be present on the server serving
http protocol (see git-update-server-info) to calculate which packs
to get, and I think it always downloads whole packs, but I'm not sure...

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git


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