Announcement that the snapshot branches are moving

[carols10cents]

I'm hoping to get this reviewed and posted on Monday, 2022-02-14.

[Eh2406]

Will removing those branches mean that people have to download the entire index again if the squash has happened since last time they updated? When we did the first squash we tested and incremental downloads were still possible. I hope that's still true.

To clarify.

1. Clone the master branch
2. Run a squash
3. Clone the master branch

When the squashed branches where in repo, step 3 was O(1) not O(size of index). Is this still true?

[bjorn3]

When the squashed branches where in repo, step 3 was O(1) not O(size of index). Is this still true?

It feels to me like this hasn't been true for quite a while. Not sure though.

[pietroalbini]

Looks good, thanks Carol for writing this! There's only one sentence that IMO needs a bit of tweaking.

[Eh2406]

When the squashed branches where in repo, step 3 was O(1) not O(size of index). Is this still true?

It feels to me like this hasn't been true for quite a while. Not sure though.

The experiments were done before the first squash. That's what we observed at the time. If it had not been working that would also be important information for us to know. But we should collect the evidence, one way or the other.

[jtgeibel]

With the tweaks suggested by others, the contents of this post looks good to me.

Unfortunately, I'm able to replicate the behavior that @Eh2406 mentions. Without a snapshot branch, git clients will redownload all objects, even if the new HEAD commit points to the exact same tree object. I have a possible idea, but since I think it is off-topic to this particular announcement, I've left that comment at rust-lang/crates.io-index-archive#5 (comment).

[carols10cents]

Ok, I've made all suggested changes and I think this post is ready to go live tomorrow, so this is ready for someone to approve now.

[carols10cents]

Ping @rust-lang/core, could someone review and approve this today please? 🙏🏻

[badboy]

Minimal change in the metadata. Otherwise good to go.

On behalf of core: r+

[carols10cents]

I think someone from core actually has to click the merge button?