Re: Let's shrink Packages.xz

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Russ Allbery writes ("Re: Let's shrink Packages.xz"):
> I'm fairly sure Jakub's message was in response to the recent discussion
> about small Node.js packages and the frequent complaints that we should
> not introduce small packages into the archive because it bloats our
> metadata.
> 
> Reducing the size of Packages.xz by 11% or 22% would leave room for quite
> a lot of small packages while not making the problem any worse than it is
> today.

But the problem with lots of small packages is not that the
Packages.xz has too many bytes.

It's that the packaging tools, UIs (for users and developers), and
humans, need to think about too many packages.

This makes packaging tools slow, UIs cluttered, and humans confused.

Ian.