The lazy mount is very interesting. This is similar to how google3 works at Google that I have not seen any similar implementation in open source so far.
Git sparse checkout is helpful but checking files out as they are needed is much more flexible and intuitive.
Microsoft VFS for Git / GVFS is the closest that I can think of.
There is room for this lazy mount idea to be built on top of Git
I do wonder how far you can make git work like google3. Partially why I'm making Oak is because I think it might be hard to impossible to implement the necessary features for monorepos to work correctly in Git. I don't doubt that it can be done, I do wonder how it will feel though.
If the goal is just to make it work like google3, then hg and jj and sapling can all already achieve this. There’s no need for a new contender here. The differentiation must come from something else.
But of course at Google the file system part (CitC) is a layer beneath the version control system and is shared across different vcs tools.
I do think hosting is an important part of the VCS story. I agree that hg and jj and sapling are capable of being front ends to a google3 like backend GitHub like thing to support it (Google has this internally for jj). Of course some people are working on hosting solutions for these but it feels wrong to me that hosting platforms and their underlying VCS are not made by the same team. IMO people like google3 so much because it’s one integrated system which is the approach I’m trying with Oak.
> then hg and jj and sapling can all already achieve this. There’s no need for a new contender here.
classic dropbox-like comment