not at all.
if you store big repository on a server, thereis no problem
to partial checkout some of it. but if you want to heavily work with your
working copy: use mq, use own local branches, then your net trafic increases
rapidly.
another thing - i have no stable network, and itis difficult access to server repo
the only way to solve this - is to clone repository from server to local hard.
but in proposed issue105 was mentioned about huge repository.
This is similar to issue105: as far as I understand, 105 deals with a complete
clone and partial checkout from the repos to the working directory; whereas here
the request is for the clone itself to be partial.
maybe i'm not original.
i have an huge repo, but work with very small peace of it, IMHO useful would be
to clone some part of repo - some set of directory tree, and work with one,
pulling changes beetween base and partial repo.
does it troubles to provide it in mercurial?