On 9/6/08, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I'm starting to hate zlib. I actually spent almost a week trying to clean > up the zlib source code and make it something that gcc can compile into > clean code, but the fact is, zlib isn't amenable to that. The whole "shift > <n> bits in from the buffer" approach means that there is no way to make > zlib generate good code unless you are an insanely competent assembly > hacker or have tons of registers to keep all the temporaries live in. > > Now, I still do think that all my reasons for choosing zlib were pretty > solid (it's a well-tested piece of code and it is _everywhere_ and easy to > use), but boy do I wish there had been alternatives. Some alternative algorithms are here... http://cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/compression It is possible to beat zlib by 2x at the cost of CPU time and memory. Of course switching to these algorithms would involve a lot of testing and benchmarking. I'm also not sure how PAQ would fare on lots of small git objects instead of large files. Turning a 500MB packfile into a 250MB has lots of advantages in IO reduction so it is worth some CPU/memory to create it. You can even win 50'000€ for a better algorithm. http://prize.hutter1.net/ -- Jon Smirl jonsmirl@xxxxxxxxx -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
