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Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 02:59:46 +0100 (BST)
From: Mark Valentine <mark@thuvia.demon.co.uk>
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In-Reply-To: Jordan K Hubbard's message of Jul  8, 12:44am
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To: jkh@queasyweasel.com (Jordan K Hubbard),
	Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>
Subject: Re: Package system flaws?
Cc: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>,
	Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, Dan Moschuk <dan@freebsd.org>,
	arch@freebsd.org
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> From: jkh@queasyweasel.com (Jordan K Hubbard)
> Date: Mon 8 Jul, 2002
> Subject: Re: Package system flaws?

> Actually, it's the FreeBSD-specific --fast-read option.  I added it so 
> that I could extract the +CONTENTS file without having tar go all the 
> way through the tarball looking for additional +CONTENTS files.

Thanks for the clarification.  It would be nice if the package format didn't
rely on a specific network client functionality for performance (thought you
can mitigate this with a CGI/PHP script on the server in some environments).

Of course the format designer can still try to say he's only trying to
solve the network package install problem for FreeBSD, or that the entry
barrier for efficient implementation is this specific functionality, but
that limits the usefulness of the design a little...

> I'm actually with Wes anyway - zip would be a fine format on account of 
> the fact that it:
> 
> 1) Allows random access AND compression

At the expense of having to seek to the end first?  What about access to the
metadata over a slow data stream, like you might have got with tar --fast-read?

		Cheers,

		Mark.

-- 
Mark Valentine, Thuvia Labs <mark@thuvia.co.uk>       <http://www.thuvia.co.uk>
"Tigers will do ANYTHING for a tuna fish sandwich."       Mark Valentine uses
"We're kind of stupid that way."   *munch* *munch*        and endorses FreeBSD
  -- <http://www.calvinandhobbes.com>                  <http://www.freebsd.org>

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