Re: [PATCH] gitweb: Supporting caches (was: Adding a `blame' interface.)

[Florian Forster <octo@verplant.org>]

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On Mon, Jun 12, 2006 at 07:59:39AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> The apache setup at least on kernel.org is already set up to do
> caching, as long as the generated headers for the page allow it in the
> first place.

I've actually looked into improving native HTTP caching (mostly for
small site without revers proxying) by providing a `Last-Modified'
header where possible and sending a `304 Not Modified' whenever
appropriate.

While it doesn't sound hard it's next to impossible: A commit's
timestamp doesn't change when head a points to it (or does not longer
point to it). Also displaying the timestamps as `Modified xy
{seconds,minutes, hours,...} ago' possess a big problem.

(I guess the webserver could use the `If-Modified-Since' header to check
if the displayed time needs to be updated, but if you ask me it's not
worth the effort.)

In short, the `blob', `blob_plain', and `blobdiff' pages could profit
from that because they don't display the head(s) pointing to the current
commit. On the other hand, this is a little inconsistent and could be
considered a bug. So I'll give up on that unless someone has a great
idea how to handle this.

Regards,
-octo
-- 
Florian octo Forster
Hacker in training
GnuPG: 0x91523C3D
http://verplant.org/

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