view doc/README @ 16803:107a3270a24a

cleanup: use the deque type where appropriate

There have been quite a few places where we pop elements off the
front of a list.  This can turn O(n) algorithms into something more
like O(n**2).  Python has provided a deque type that can do this
efficiently since at least 2.4.

As an example of the difference a deque can make, it improves
perfancestors performance on a Linux repo from 0.50 seconds to 0.36.

Mercurial's documentation is kept in reStructuredText format, which is
a simple plain text format that's easy to read and edit:

  http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

It's also convertible to a variety of other formats including standard
UNIX man page format and HTML. You'll need to install Docutils:

  http://docutils.sourceforge.net/

Use the Makefile in this directory to generate the man and HTML pages.