6 ms·

Perhaps I dont fully understand the value of something like DropBox, when it comes to syncing my files the only thing I've ever needed has been github (or other

Perhaps I dont fully understand the value of something like DropBox, when it comes to syncing my files the only thing I've ever needed has been github (or other online repo). Among syncing it has all the other version control goodness, and I will likely use it until I can setup some kind of home server

jcranberry 7y ago
From the users perspective git is an application which you use to actively maintain a repo. Whereas Dropbox is more or less just a magic folder. Entirely different levels of convenience.
- 0_gravitas 7y ago
  I definitely understand why "normal" users wouldn't use an online repo (especially if they've never used git itself), but I can't really buy `git add ., git commit -m "sync", git push -u` being too inconvenient, especially when you can just alias all of those. Now if mobile phones are the main reason I can definately understand a bit more, but I do my best to minimize my usage of it anyway, it's mainly a messenger + hn device.
  - jpindar 7y ago
    I use github - for code. But dumping 100 Gigs of movies, music, books, and other random personal stuff there is not its intended use.
    - 0_gravitas 7y ago
      Movies and music I get, but I have all my schoolwork and related stuff, like all my org-mode files, in there, not just code, it 100% beats emailing myself some work I did on my desktop just so I can print it out on a school computer/work on it using a laptop.
  - tsegers 7y ago
    That's still one action more than is required for using a synchronization service. The killer feature is not having to do anything at all. I save my file on one computer, and it's available on all my other machines, my phone and anything with a web browser without a conscious thought at all.
    - 0_gravitas 7y ago
      I wonder how hard it would be to make a folder that automatically pushes itself to a git repo whenever it detects a change in its contents, I've actually been thinking about that for a bit now. The optimist in me thinks it can't be too hard, could be a nice project to do someday.
      - jcranberry 7y ago
        You could do it easily with a service which just indexes the files and periodically looks at most recently modified timestamps and then pushes if any of them are later than the most recent sync.
mrlala 7y ago
Lots of things have nothing to do with a repo? I work remotely with my colleagues. We constantly are doing stuff like creating/updating excel files and all sorts of other stuff that has nothing to do with source code. With dropbox (or equivalents) I update something in the file, and it's updated right away everywhere no matter where my co-workers are. Dropbox also has good enough built-in version history (especially on business), it will keep the changes of any file for like 6 months. So if I want to look how this excel file looked an hour ago, I just click "version history" and it pulls up all the different files and I can restore any one. So for people who work remotely and just want to sync files / have some ability to restore previous versions dropbox is a life changer. Yeah, of course this could all be setup to have each person on a VPN and using a shared folder on a server where we are logged into the domain or we setup a ZFS filesystem which takes snapshots and I can restore etc etc. In a small company, F that. I've done all that bullshit, it isn't worth the time and maintenance when you just want a damn synced filesystem among co-workers. So there is the value proposition!
dreamcompiler 7y ago
Github is great for text but absolute shit for binary files. Dropbox works fine for both.

jcranberry 7y ago

From the users perspective git is an application which you use to actively maintain a repo. Whereas Dropbox is more or less just a magic folder. Entirely different levels of convenience.

0_gravitas 7y ago
I definitely understand why "normal" users wouldn't use an online repo (especially if they've never used git itself), but I can't really buy `git add ., git commit -m "sync", git push -u` being too inconvenient, especially when you can just alias all of those. Now if mobile phones are the main reason I can definately understand a bit more, but I do my best to minimize my usage of it anyway, it's mainly a messenger + hn device.
- jpindar 7y ago
  I use github - for code. But dumping 100 Gigs of movies, music, books, and other random personal stuff there is not its intended use.
  - 0_gravitas 7y ago
    Movies and music I get, but I have all my schoolwork and related stuff, like all my org-mode files, in there, not just code, it 100% beats emailing myself some work I did on my desktop just so I can print it out on a school computer/work on it using a laptop.
- tsegers 7y ago
  That's still one action more than is required for using a synchronization service. The killer feature is not having to do anything at all. I save my file on one computer, and it's available on all my other machines, my phone and anything with a web browser without a conscious thought at all.
  - 0_gravitas 7y ago
    I wonder how hard it would be to make a folder that automatically pushes itself to a git repo whenever it detects a change in its contents, I've actually been thinking about that for a bit now. The optimist in me thinks it can't be too hard, could be a nice project to do someday.
    - jcranberry 7y ago
      You could do it easily with a service which just indexes the files and periodically looks at most recently modified timestamps and then pushes if any of them are later than the most recent sync.

mrlala 7y ago

Lots of things have nothing to do with a repo? I work remotely with my colleagues. We constantly are doing stuff like creating/updating excel files and all sorts of other stuff that has nothing to do with source code. With dropbox (or equivalents) I update something in the file, and it's updated right away everywhere no matter where my co-workers are. Dropbox also has good enough built-in version history (especially on business), it will keep the changes of any file for like 6 months. So if I want to look how this excel file looked an hour ago, I just click "version history" and it pulls up all the different files and I can restore any one. So for people who work remotely and just want to sync files / have some ability to restore previous versions dropbox is a life changer. Yeah, of course this could all be setup to have each person on a VPN and using a shared folder on a server where we are logged into the domain or we setup a ZFS filesystem which takes snapshots and I can restore etc etc. In a small company, F that. I've done all that bullshit, it isn't worth the time and maintenance when you just want a damn synced filesystem among co-workers. So there is the value proposition!

dreamcompiler 7y ago

Github is great for text but absolute shit for binary files. Dropbox works fine for both.