Hi Junio, On Fri, 16 Apr 2021, Junio C Hamano wrote: > "Jeff Hostetler via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > This patch series adds a builtin FSMonitor daemon to Git. > > This hasn't seen much (if any) activity for a few weeks. It actually is a good sign: I integrated this into Git for Windows (as an experimental feature) and am running with it for a couple of weeks already (in _all_ worktrees, not just the massively large ones). At first, I ran into a handful Blue Screens of Death, and I was worried that they should be attributed to FSMonitor. But it turns out that this issue was most likely caused by a Windows update, and semi-resolved with another Windows update (and only happens because I use WSL extensively). In other words, those crashes are not related to FSMonitor. So yeah, I find the lack of activity pretty good news. However, I would have hoped that this patch series would see a couple of reviews in the meantime. Since I was involved in the development of this patch series (I started it just before I got dragged into all that security work that led to v2.24.1, and never quite got back to it after that), I wondered whether it would be "self review" if I reviewed those patches, which is something I'd rather avoid. But if nobody else reviews the patches, I will. > Does that mean nobody (other than obviously the author and whoever > wanted to have this feature) is interested? The most likely reason why this does not see more reviews is that it matters most for massive worktrees, and I don't think anybody here works with those. The closest to a massive worktree I have is the `git-sdk-64` repository (which has pretty much nothing to do with source code at all, it is just a matter of convenience that this is a Git repository; Think of it as if somebody mirrored their Ubuntu installation by tracking it in a Git repository and cloning it onto all of their machines). And that is not really all that massive: $ git -C / ls-files | wc -l 162975 That's tiny compared to some worktrees I saw. But we should not mistake the needs of those on the Git mailing list (`git ls-tree -r v2.31.1 | wc -l` says we have only 3901 files/symlinks) for the needs of some of our biggest users. So I would like to respectfully ask for this patch series to be kept under consideration for `next`. > What does it need to get this topic unstuck? The same resource that you keep complaining about, and that seems to be drained more quickly than it can be replenished: reviewers. I am as guilty as the next person, of course, and it does not help that I get Cc:ed on several dozen patches seemingly every couple of days: this is just too much, and I cannot do it, so I admittedly neglect too many patch series (even the ones that I _do_ want to review, such as the `bisect-in-c` one). My inbox is seriously no fun place to visit right now. > > Finally, having a builtin daemon eliminates the need for user to download > > and install a third-party tool. This makes enterprise deployments simpler > > since there are fewer parts to install, maintain, and updates to track. > > > > This RFC version includes support for Windows and MacOS file system events. > > A Linux version will be submitted in a later patch series. I guess this is another reason why this patch series did not see many reviews: the lack of a Linux backend. And I fear that the statement "A Linux version will be submitted in a later patch series" is a bit strong, given that my original implementation of that backend does not really do its job well: it uses `inotify` and therefore requires one handle _per directory_, which in turn drains the number of file handles rather quickly when your worktree has many directories. Meaning: It fails todoes not work in the massive worktrees for which it was intended. Now, I heard rumors that there is a saner way to monitor directory trees in recent Linux kernel versions (Jeff, can you fill in where I am blanking?) and it might be a good idea to solicit volunteers to tackle this backend, so that the Linux-leaning crowd on this here mailing list is interested a bit more? Ciao, Dscho
