>
> --[[Joey]]
-[[!tag wishlist]]
+[[!template id=gitbranch branch=smcv/ready/optimize-depends author="[[smcv]]"]]
+
+>> I've been looking at optimizing ikiwiki for a site using
+>> [[plugins/contrib/album]] (which produces a lot of pages) and it seems
+>> that checking which pages depend on which pages does take a significant
+>> amount of time. The optimize-depends branch in my git repository
+>> avoids using `pagespec_merge()` for this (indeed it's no longer used
+>> at all), and instead represents dependencies as a list of pagespecs
+>> rather than a single pagespec. This does turn out to be faster, although
+>> not as much as I'd like. --[[smcv]]
+
+>>> I just wanted to note that there is a whole long discussion of dependencies and pagespecs on the [[todo/tracking_bugs_with_dependencies]] page. -- [[Will]]
+
+>>>> Yeah, I had a look at that (as the only other mention of `pagespec_merge`).
+>>>> I think I might have solved some of the problems mentioned there,
+>>>> actually - `pagespec_merge` no longer needs to exist in my branch (although
+>>>> I haven't actually deleted it), because the "or" operation is now done in
+>>>> the Perl code, rather than by merging pagespecs and translating. --[[smcv]]
+
+[[!template id=gitbranch branch=smcv/ready/remove-pagespec-merge author="[[smcv]]"]]
+
+>>>>> I've now added a patch to the end of that branch that deletes
+>>>>> `pagespec_merge` almost entirely (we do need to keep a copy around, in
+>>>>> ikiwiki-transition, but that copy doesn't have to be optimal or support
+>>>>> future features like [[tracking_bugs_with_dependencies]]). --[[smcv]]
+
+[[!tag wishlist patch patch/core]]