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Making TRAMP faster

(coredumped.dev)
226 points celeritascelery | 1 comments | 23 Jun 25 14:46 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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imiric ◴[23 Jun 25 16:07 UTC] No.44357190[source]▶
TRAMP is neat, but I find watchexec+rsync to be a much more performant alternative. This way I keep editing files locally, and they're simply synced to the remote host when they change. This workflow also has the benefit of being able to use all my local tooling, it keeps a local copy which I often need, it supports any editor (forgive me, Father rms), and is easily configurable (include or exclude files, delete files on the remote, etc.).
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wging ◴[23 Jun 25 16:30 UTC] No.44357445[source]▶
I did the same thing when I was building on remote machines frequently. Either an internal one-way syncing tool or Unison, but basically the same as what I think you're implying. (Watchexec to notice changes, and kick off your local rsync to the remote machine, right?)

TRAMP rarely seemed worth it to fiddle with, especially when such a workflow supports all tools, even those run in a CLI outside of emacs: run a formatter or other automation locally and have the changes propagate? git pull locally, ditto? why not?

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1. chriswarbo ◴[23 Jun 25 20:19 UTC] No.44359649[source]▶
> such a workflow supports all tools

Well, it doesn't support anything that we want to actually run on the remote. TRAMP isn't just about files: M-! in a TRAMP buffer will execute the command on the remote; M-x shell will start a shell-mode session that's running on the remote; and so on.

Also, TRAMP remotes don't need to be other machines; e.g. the `sudo` remote lets us open local files with sudo permissions. It's nice to use the same mostly-transparent approach to access other machines, other users, containers, etc.

Also, multi-hop remotes would be more painful to manage without TRAMP, e.g. Emacs will open a path like `/ssh:bastion|ssh:other-machine|sudo:/etc/foo` will open an SSH connection to `bastion`, and from there will open an SSH connection to `other-machine`, and on there will open the file `/etc/foo` using sudo privileges. Again, all the TRAMP goodies like M-! will work as they normally do :)