Multiple distfiles vs "git submodule"

[Joshua Root]

On 2020-7-15 11:53 , Jason Liu wrote:
> I have a question regarding how best to fetch the source code for my
> Blender port. Blender's source code is split up into four pieces, which
> are of course structured as submodules in GitHub. I know that I could
> use the 'git submodule update --init' technique to obtain the submodules
> during the fetch phase, as has been discussed previously:
> 
> https://trac.macports.org/ticket/50708
> 
> However, Blender does something which many other projects on GitHub
> don't: the four parts of the source code are always tagged with an
> identical release version number, and are always pushed up to GitHub
> simultaneously when a new release gets tagged. This makes it relatively
> easy to have my portfile fetch the four tarballs as distfiles. And since
> MacPorts supports multiple distfiles, this also seems like a viable option.
> 
> The reason why I ask is that if I fetch the tarballs of the four parts,
> the amount of data downloaded totals around 53 MB. If I use 'git
> submodule', the amount of data downloaded totals around 959 MB. Yes,
> disk storage and network bandwidth are cheap these days, but that's
> still a pretty big difference.
> 
> So... which method should I use?

Always use distfiles if possible.

- Josh