title: Is there a way to do a really SPARSE checkout for git?
body: <p>I saw this question <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4114887/is-it-possible-to-do-a-sparse-checkout-without-checking-out-the-whole-repository">here</a>, but the question is from 2010 and talks about git version &lt; 2 mostly. And all of the given answers seem to indicate: you can restrict the "current" checkout; but you will always have the <strong>full</strong> history locally.</p>
  
  <p>The later thing is my problem. We just moved from SVN to git for our main repository; and the .git has some 8, 9 GB (a lot of history, and a lot of huge files).</p>
  
  <p>But: one tiny directory in that huge repository is a small python tool (lets call it PX) that I own and use daily. </p>
  
  <p>Before moving the backend to git, it would simply use git-svn, twice:
  a full checkout of the huge repository containing everything (for my real development work); and a sparse checkout containing only PX.</p>
  
  <p>Now I am wondering if git 2.95 in 2016 would provides any option to use git as I used git-svn before. Meaning - having a working git for PX, but PX only.</p>