gistfile1.txt

Sun Jun 13 01:02:34 BST 2004  jch@pps.jussieu.fr
  * Avoid unpacking PackedStrings in the printer.
  Darcs reads file data into PackedStrings, but unpacks them when
  printing out a patch.
        
  The fix is to make the printer able to grok streams of arbitrary
  tokens, not just Haskell strings (streams of Char).  See the type
  class Printer.Printable and the instance Printer.PChar.  See also the
  type synonim PrintPatch.PrinterType, which is what gets actually used.
  
  The net effect is that darcs whatsnew is more than twice as fast, and
  darcs pull of large patches uses 10 (!) times less memory.  On the
  other hand, darcs pull of many small patches uses up a few percent
  more CPU time, which I don't understand.