Re: [Monotone-devel] responses to some IRC discussion of 'automate'

[Thomas Moschny]

On Monday 07 August 2006 00:12 Nathaniel Smith wrote :
> > > Why should automate stdio block size be configurable?
> >
> > Because it is easier to make some measurements (you asked for some
> > benchmarks when this came up last time) this way than to recompile
> > x-times for different values of the constant ;-)
>
> Sure.  (Though for simple measurement it often suffices to use a quick
> getenv() type call, and commit it on a branch if you commit it at
> all.)

For this small change I doubt it would have been easier to get the value from 
the environment than from the commandline.

Additionally, some quick tests show that there is no real optimum, but 
increasing performance with increased block size over a great range of block 
sizes.

The ideal block size might depend on automate stdio's use: For a project like 
Guitone that only fetches metadata through this interface, a smaller block 
size will do, while projects like TracMonotone, that also fetches file 
contents, a big block size can really help to increase performance.

> Probably that's our job to adjust the default, then -- in practice I
> can't imagine that the API's users can or will track this anywhere
> near as well as we can.

The average user won't use automate stdio anyway.

Thomas

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