alt Hacker NewsThe other conclusion to draw is "Git is a fantastic choice of database for starting your package manager, almost all popular package managers began that way."
Replies
edolstra • yesterday at 4:44 PM
Indeed. Nixpkgs wouldn't have been as successful if it hadn't been using Git (or GitHub).
Sure, eventually you run into scaling issues, but that's a first world problem.
bluGill • yesterday at 2:19 PM
Git isn't a fantastic choice unless you know nothing about databases. A search would show plenty of research on databases and what works when/why.
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adastra22 • yesterday at 2:28 PM
Git is an absolute shit database for a package manager even in the beginning. It’s just that GitHub subsidizes hosting and that is hard to pass up.
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venturecruelty • yesterday at 11:26 PM
No. No, no, no. Git is a fantastic choice if you want a supply chain nightmare and then Leftpad every week forever.
I think the conclusion is more that package definitions can still be maintained on git/GitHub but the package manager clients should probably rely on a cache/db/a more efficient intermediate layer.
Mostly to avoid downloading the whole repo/resolve deltas from the history for the few packages most applications tend to depend on. Especially in today's CI/CD World.