darcs 2.1.0 released!
I am delighted to announce the release of darcs 2.1.0, available at
What has changed?
This version provides over 20 bug fixes and 7 new features since darcs 2.0.2. The most notable changes are:
Defaulting to darcs-2. The darcs initialize command now creates darcs-2 format repositories by default. This change will make the the improved conflict handling and merging semantics from darcs 2 available to more users. Note that no action is required on your part. Darcs will continue working with all pre-existing repositories. You can explicitly request an old-fashioned repository if needed.
Better HTTP support. Dmitry Kurochkin has refined our HTTP support and fixed several http-related bugs from darcs 2.0.2. There is also an experimental --http-pipelining feature you can enable on the command line (or in your defaults file) for faster downloading. Note: --http-pipelining is enabled by default for libwww, and also for libcurl 7.19.1 (not yet released at the time of this writing)
Repository correctness. David Roundy has resolved a longstanding 'pending patch' regression (originally reported on 2008-02). Needless to say the offending case has been moved to our regression testing suite
See the attached ChangeLog for more details.
What should I do?
Upgrade! Binary versions should be available shortly, either from your favourite package distributor or by third party contributors.
Other than installing the new darcs, no action is required on your part to perform this upgrade. Darcs 2, including this particular version, is 100% compatible with your pre-existing repositories.
If you have not done so already, you should consider using the hashed repository format in place of your current old-fashioned repositories. This format offers greater protection against accidental corruption, better support for case insensitive file systems. It also provides some very nice performance features, including lazy fetching of patches and a global cache (both optional).
If darcs 1 compatibility is not a concern, you could also upgrade your repositories all the way to the darcs 2 format. In addition to the robustness and performance features above, this gives you the improved merging semantics and conflicts handling that give darcs 2 its name.
- More details about upgrading to darcs 2 here:
What comes next?
We will now be shifting to a time based release model, with the next darcs release planned for January 2009.
For the next release of darcs, we will be focusing on optimising darcs's day to day performance issues. We want darcs to fetch repositories as fast as it possibly can over a network, and we especially want to rehabilitate known slow commands like darcs annotate. We believe that a few simple and practical changes can really improve the darcs experience for most users.
Think you can help? We would love to hear from you. In fact, the first darcs hacking sprint (25-26 October) is fast approaching! We have three venues available: Brighton, Paris and Portland and everybody is invited to come hack. See http://wiki.darcs.net/index.html/Sprints for details.
Thanks everybody, and enjoy!
