Would you rather that `git checkout` got a lot faster at checking out a lot
of files, and `git add` got a lot faster at adding a lot of small files, if
the tradeoff was that `git add` and `git commit -a` got slower at adding
large files to the annex than they are now?

Being able to make that choice is what I'm working on now. Of course,
we'd rather it were all fast, but due to 
[[todo/git_smudge_clean_interface_suboptiomal]], that is not possible
without improvements to git. But I seem to have a plan that will
work around enough of the problems to let that choice be made.

Today I've been laying the groundwork, by implementing git's
pkt-line interface, and the long-running filter process protocol.
Next step will be to add support for that in `git-annex smudge`,
so that users who want to can enable it with:

	git config filter.annex.process 'git-annex filter-process'

I can imagine that becoming enabled by default at some point in v9, if most
users prefer it over the current method. Which would still be available
by unsetting the config.

----

Today's work was sponsored by Mark Reidenbach
[on Patreon](https://patreon.com/joeyh)
