rsync considered superior

Simon 'corecode' Schubert corecode at fs.ei.tum.de
Wed Jan 30 07:27:43 PST 2008


Bill Hacker wrote:
To state it clearly for everybody:

=========================================================================

  Use rsync to sync your repos!  It is faster and can even be compiled!
To state it even MORE clearly...

" ...so long as you do not give a damn about the extra load you are 
placing on the source server...."
wrong.  there is no extra load.  do you have numbers?  if not, don't state 
this like a fact.  I believe that cvsup will produce a higher load on the 
server, but that's up to curious people.

rsync predates CVSUP.
unix predates windows, yet windows is in wide use.  is it good?  who 
cares, we're using bsd.  so who predates whom is no argument.

- cvsup would never have seen the light of day in the first place.
there are thousands of useless and stupid software products out there. 
existance is no argument for superiority.

- NOR been adopted so *very* widely.
very?  it's seemingly only used by the bsds, and of those only intensively 
by freebsd.  other groups use cvsync or rather don't sync the cvs repos.

- NOR have remained in service for so long on so many projects.
never change a running system.  as long as it works, why bother?

- NOR survived challenges from 'Mercurial' and several other similar tools.
which challenges?  mercurial is orthogonal.  if you're stuck with cvs, you 
gotta use a repo syncer or suffer with anoncvs.

A vast supposition about rsync, backed up by half-vast testing doesn't 
change any of that. Not even with a nicely done write-up.
oh come on, seriously.  you believe that?  how can you pull out a couple 
of shady arguments and shoot down a well-founded evaluation?  that's not 
even remotely scientific.

Set up the repo you have mirrored as a source server.
I am running the server.  I checked the load while syncing one client. 
arguably that's not a founded experiment, but it is a data point.

Instrument that server's load with 100 simultaneous rsync clients and 
again with 100 simultaneous cvsup clients.

Post the results.
go ahead, make my day.  I for sure don't have time for such useless 
experiments.  the choice is rsync.  cvsup is dead.  it is written in an 
unmaintainable language and it performs slower on the client.  'nuff said, 
no more data needed.  the facts speak clearly, even if they don't cover 
the server part.

cheers
  simon
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