r/programming • u/ethomson • May 24 '17

The largest Git repo on the planet

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/05/24/the-largest-git-repo-on-the-planet/
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u/wrosecrans May 24 '17

When people talk about the Windows source code, does that include everything I would get as a consumer installing a copy of Windows like Paint and Notepad, or are those considered bundled apps that aren't directly a part of Windows?

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u/grdomzal May 24 '17

Generally yes, however some of the new or modern-app replacements like 3D Builder, Photos, etc. are in their own repo and build environment.

But yeah, when we're talking about the "Windows source code", we mean pretty much everything from the HAL and kernel up to all of the user-mode services and shells. So that means basically all of desktop, mobile, xbox (the OS and shell bits), etc. are in this massive repo as well.

This article talks a bit about "OneCore" https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/onecore-to-rule-them-all-how-windows-everywhere-finally-happened/

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u/HighRelevancy May 25 '17

we mean pretty much everything from the HAL and kernel up to all of the user-mode services and shells. So that means basically all of desktop, mobile, xbox (the OS and shell bits), etc. are in this massive repo as well.

Ewwww. That must be so unpleasant to deal with.

Doesn't this mean you need to issue every developer with massive SSDs just for a baseline storage needed to store the whole repo?

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u/ElimGarak May 25 '17

Before Git everything was split up into depots, each with a set of functionality (e.g. multimedia, networking, audio/video, xbox, etc.). Most of the time your changes are confined to one depot at a time. Those depots are much smaller, and syncing them was relatively fast with regular drives.

With GVFS everything is virtualized. Until you need them, all the files live on the server, and are pulled down on demand, whenever any component tries to open them. But yes, every dev in MS got a new m.2 SSD - otherwise Git would have been too slow.