[Gnu-arch-users] why does "tla get" with many patches become slower and slower?

[duchier]

Here is the context:

I am still working on converting my CVS archive to arch with cscvs.
For a reason not germane to the issue, cscvs was interrupted and the
arch project tree left in an unclean state.  So I decided to "tla get"
what I already had into a new clean project tree and restart cscvs
from where it got interrupted.

Here is the issue:

The archive now contains 7369 patches and when I try to "tla get" it,
it starts quite fast, but gets slower and slower and consumes a lot of
resources to the point where my machine becomes barely useable.  I
interrupted the get process at patch 4732.

I understand that I can cache revisions, but why is it that "tla get"
gets slower and slower and burns resources that way?  Maybe the
question is naive: but what's the big deal?  It's just applying
patches.  right?

Cheers,

-- 
Denys Duchier - Équipe Calligramme - LORIA, Nancy, France