git/contrib
Johannes Schindelin 0a43fb2202 scalar: create a rudimentary executable
The idea of Scalar (https://github.com/microsoft/scalar), and before
that, of VFS for Git, has always been to prove that Git _can_ scale, and
to upstream whatever strategies have been demonstrated to help.

With this patch, we start the journey from that C# project to move what
is left to Git's own `contrib/` directory, reimplementing it in pure C,
with the intention to facilitate integrating the functionality into core
Git all while maintaining backwards-compatibility for existing Scalar
users (which will be much easier when both live in the same worktree).
It has always been the plan to contribute all of the proven strategies
back to core Git.

For example, while the virtual filesystem provided by VFS for Git helped
the team developing the Windows operating system to move onto Git, while
trying to upstream it we realized that it cannot be done: getting the
virtual filesystem to work (which we only managed to implement fully on
Windows, but not on, say, macOS or Linux), and the required server-side
support for the GVFS protocol, made this not quite feasible.

The Scalar project learned from that and tackled the problem with
different tactics: instead of pretending to Git that the working
directory is fully populated, it _specifically_ teaches Git about
partial clone (which is based on VFS for Git's cache server), about
sparse checkout (which VFS for Git tried to do transparently, in the
file system layer), and regularly runs maintenance tasks to keep the
repository in a healthy state.

With partial clone, sparse checkout and `git maintenance` having been
upstreamed, there is little left that `scalar.exe` does which `git.exe`
cannot do. One such thing is that `scalar clone <url>` will
automatically set up a partial, sparse clone, and configure
known-helpful settings from the start.

So let's bring this convenience into Git's tree.

The idea here is that you can (optionally) build Scalar via

	make -C contrib/scalar/

This will build the `scalar` executable and put it into the
contrib/scalar/ subdirectory.

The slightly awkward addition of the `contrib/scalar/*` bits to the
top-level `Makefile` are actually really required: we want to link to
`libgit.a`, which means that we will need to use the very same `CFLAGS`
and `LDFLAGS` as the rest of Git.

An early development version of this patch tried to replicate all the
conditional code in `contrib/scalar/Makefile` (e.g. `NO_POLL`) just like
`contrib/svn-fe/Makefile` used to do before it was retired. It turned
out to be quite the whack-a-mole game: the SHA-1-related flags, the
flags enabling/disabling `compat/poll/`, `compat/regex/`,
`compat/win32mmap.c` & friends depending on the current platform... To
put it mildly: it was a major mess.

Instead, this patch makes minimal changes to the top-level `Makefile` so
that the bits in `contrib/scalar/` can be compiled and linked, and
adds a `contrib/scalar/Makefile` that uses the top-level `Makefile` in a
most minimal way to do the actual compiling.

Note: With this commit, we only establish the infrastructure, no
Scalar functionality is implemented yet; We will do that incrementally
over the next few commits.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2021-12-04 21:52:23 -08:00
..
buildsystems git-sh-setup: remove "sane_grep", it's not needed anymore 2021-10-21 16:17:57 -07:00
coccinelle index-pack: use xopen in init_thread 2021-09-10 14:22:50 -07:00
completion Merge branch 'tp/send-email-completion' 2021-11-29 15:41:49 -08:00
contacts git-contacts: also recognise "Reported-by:" 2017-07-27 09:42:55 -07:00
credential *.[ch] *_INIT macros: use { 0 } for a "zero out" idiom 2021-09-27 14:47:59 -07:00
diff-highlight diff-highlight: correctly match blank lines for flush 2020-09-21 22:33:28 -07:00
emacs git{,-blame}.el: remove old bitrotting Emacs code 2018-04-16 17:25:49 +09:00
examples Merge branch 'bw/c-plus-plus' into ds/lazy-load-trees 2018-04-11 10:46:32 +09:00
fast-import import-tars: ignore the global PAX header 2020-03-24 14:39:47 -07:00
git-jump contrib/git-jump/git-jump: jump to exact location 2018-06-22 12:59:02 -07:00
git-shell-commands
hg-to-git hg-to-git: make it compatible with both python3 and python2 2019-09-18 12:03:05 -07:00
hooks multimail: stop shipping a copy 2021-06-11 13:35:19 +09:00
long-running-filter docs: warn about possible '=' in clean/smudge filter process values 2016-12-06 11:29:52 -08:00
mw-to-git t: fix whitespace around && 2021-06-08 10:08:01 +09:00
persistent-https docs/config: mention protocol implications of url.insteadOf 2017-06-01 10:07:10 +09:00
remote-helpers contrib: git-remote-{bzr,hg} placeholders don't need Python 2017-03-03 11:09:34 -08:00
scalar scalar: create a rudimentary executable 2021-12-04 21:52:23 -08:00
stats
subtree subtree: fix assumption about the directory separator 2021-06-15 11:38:28 +09:00
thunderbird-patch-inline contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline/appp.sh: use the $( ... ) construct for command substitution 2015-12-27 15:33:13 -08:00
update-unicode unicode_width.h: rename to use dash in file name 2018-04-11 18:11:00 +09:00
vscode vscode: let cSpell work on commit messages, too 2018-07-30 13:14:39 -07:00
workdir git-new-workdir: mark script as LF-only 2017-05-10 13:32:50 +09:00
coverage-diff.sh contrib: add coverage-diff script 2018-10-10 10:11:35 +09:00
git-resurrect.sh contrib/git-resurrect.sh: use hash-agnostic OID pattern 2020-10-08 11:48:56 -07:00
README
remotes2config.sh
rerere-train.sh Comment important codepaths regarding nuking untracked files/dirs 2021-09-27 13:38:37 -07:00

Contributed Software

Although these pieces are available as part of the official git
source tree, they are in somewhat different status.  The
intention is to keep interesting tools around git here, maybe
even experimental ones, to give users an easier access to them,
and to give tools wider exposure, so that they can be improved
faster.

I am not expecting to touch these myself that much.  As far as
my day-to-day operation is concerned, these subdirectories are
owned by their respective primary authors.  I am willing to help
if users of these components and the contrib/ subtree "owners"
have technical/design issues to resolve, but the initiative to
fix and/or enhance things _must_ be on the side of the subtree
owners.  IOW, I won't be actively looking for bugs and rooms for
enhancements in them as the git maintainer -- I may only do so
just as one of the users when I want to scratch my own itch.  If
you have patches to things in contrib/ area, the patch should be
first sent to the primary author, and then the primary author
should ack and forward it to me (git pull request is nicer).
This is the same way as how I have been treating gitk, and to a
lesser degree various foreign SCM interfaces, so you know the
drill.

I expect that things that start their life in the contrib/ area
to graduate out of contrib/ once they mature, either by becoming
projects on their own, or moving to the toplevel directory.  On
the other hand, I expect I'll be proposing removal of disused
and inactive ones from time to time.

If you have new things to add to this area, please first propose
it on the git mailing list, and after a list discussion proves
there are some general interests (it does not have to be a
list-wide consensus for a tool targeted to a relatively narrow
audience -- for example I do not work with projects whose
upstream is svn, so I have no use for git-svn myself, but it is
of general interest for people who need to interoperate with SVN
repositories in a way git-svn works better than git-svnimport),
submit a patch to create a subdirectory of contrib/ and put your
stuff there.

-jc