On: Using Git with Dropbox

[iveqy]

#git on freenode has some interesting thought about this:

11:44 -gitinfo(jast@infobot.gitrecipes.de)- Storing git repositories on DropBox is a Very Bad Idea™. Use a free hosting service (such as Bitbucket or GitHub), or read !dropbox_why if you insist upon having your repo corrupted.

11:44 <iveqy> !dropbox_why

11:44 -gitinfo(jast@infobot.gitrecipes.de)- git uses a lot of frequently-changed small files, which dropbox's synchronization algorithms barf on. Use of multiple dropbox clients compounds this, with hilarious results

[halisaurus → iveqy]

Does this include using Dropbox for the local copy only? Still pushing to GitHub as usual, just using the Dripbox folder as the local directory.

[bradleyland → halisaurus]

If you're playing by the rules, it includes any scenario where a Git repo is stored within Dropbox.

Git expects to have full control over the files in the git repo. Git does not expect any changes to the files that it does not perform itself. Any scenario where an outside process performs regular changes to the Git repo is an opportunity to corrupt the repo.