alt Hacker NewsWhat made git special & powerful from the start was its data model: Like the network databases of old, but embedded in a Merkle tree for independent evolution and verifiability.
Scaling that data model beyond projects the size of the Linux kernel was not critical for the original implementation. I do wonder if there are fundamental limits to scaling the model for use cases beyond “source code management for modest-sized, long-lived projects”.
Most of the problems mentioned in the article are not problems with using a content-addressed tree like git or even with using precisely git’s schema. The problems are with git’s protocol and GitHub’s implementation thereof.
Consider vcpkg. It’s entirely reasonable to download a tree named by its hash to represent a locked package. Git knows how to store exactly this, but git does not know how to transfer it efficiently.