4 ms·

This wedges Dropbox in as a critical system dependency. Dropbox screws up - and you no longer have your core config files needed for basic system operation.

chongli 7y ago
If the old setup had been maintained, it still would've been possible for Dropbox to screw up by following the symlinks and deleting files all over your filesystem.
jumbopapa 7y ago
I think it's unlikely that Dropbox files would just disappear from the disk. They might not update, but that's the only realistic option.
- dasil003 7y ago
  It's not realistic that a distributed and potentially shared file syncing product could erroneously delete a file?
  - rvnx 7y ago
    It's a company that allowed anyone in production to login and download/delete files of any account without any password. I'm sure they have improved procedures since right ?
- prepend 7y ago
  I had this expectation too. Recently I started trying to use OneDrive. I had really basic expectations. But I’ve run into situations where multiple locations syncing the same files led to weird stuff. Scenario- win7, win10, mac, phone had a folder called “admin” with multiple sub folders. Turning off syncing on a sub folder on one of these ended up deleting the folder and all it’s contents on all the machines. Renaming or moving folders has also resulted in unexpected deletes. OneDrive is not Dropbox, but it reminded me not to do this with important files regardless that Dropbox has been pretty solid for 10+ years. I’m back to rsync from “source” and not using OneDrive for workflow.
codetrotter 7y ago
Ok, I disagree about that concern because I don’t see Dropbox screwing up that badly. But if that is a concern then using hard links instead of symlinks should probably solve the problem for you. Personally I prefer symlinks because it makes it easy to tell what files I have directly under source control. But hard links should work fine and should mean that even if Dropbox mysteriously decides to delete your files from your ~/Dropbox/ directory you will still have a local copy of them and be able to use your system without interruption.
- chongli 7y ago
  Hard links only save you from Dropbox deleting the files. If instead they trash the file contents you're still out of luck.
  - codetrotter 7y ago
    If you have that little faith in Dropbox why are you even using it? And how do you imagine that it would happen that Dropbox would randomly trash the contents of your files? And if it was that buggy why the bug be limited to just the files in your ~/Dropbox/? By that argument you might as well say that it could trash any file owned by your user. And if you believe Dropbox to be likely to have such serious bugs, why just Dropbox and not other software you are using? For example Chromium or Firefox? Or any other piece of software? Seems less like a serious concern and more like trying to think up any imaginable thing that could conceivably go wrong no matter how unlikely.
    - chongli 7y ago
      And how do you imagine that it would happen that Dropbox would randomly trash the contents of your files? Lots of ways. Suppose they tried to implement a 3-way merge system (a la git) to resolve conflicts in your synced files. It's easy to see that going terribly wrong if they implement it incorrectly. It's proprietary software as a service. That means they could conceivably make a breaking change like that without even notifying you, the user, and cause data loss.
- 7y ago

chongli 7y ago

If the old setup had been maintained, it still would've been possible for Dropbox to screw up by following the symlinks and deleting files all over your filesystem.

jumbopapa 7y ago

I think it's unlikely that Dropbox files would just disappear from the disk. They might not update, but that's the only realistic option.

dasil003 7y ago
It's not realistic that a distributed and potentially shared file syncing product could erroneously delete a file?
- rvnx 7y ago
  It's a company that allowed anyone in production to login and download/delete files of any account without any password. I'm sure they have improved procedures since right ?
prepend 7y ago
I had this expectation too. Recently I started trying to use OneDrive. I had really basic expectations. But I’ve run into situations where multiple locations syncing the same files led to weird stuff. Scenario- win7, win10, mac, phone had a folder called “admin” with multiple sub folders. Turning off syncing on a sub folder on one of these ended up deleting the folder and all it’s contents on all the machines. Renaming or moving folders has also resulted in unexpected deletes. OneDrive is not Dropbox, but it reminded me not to do this with important files regardless that Dropbox has been pretty solid for 10+ years. I’m back to rsync from “source” and not using OneDrive for workflow.

codetrotter 7y ago

Ok, I disagree about that concern because I don’t see Dropbox screwing up that badly. But if that is a concern then using hard links instead of symlinks should probably solve the problem for you. Personally I prefer symlinks because it makes it easy to tell what files I have directly under source control. But hard links should work fine and should mean that even if Dropbox mysteriously decides to delete your files from your ~/Dropbox/ directory you will still have a local copy of them and be able to use your system without interruption.

chongli 7y ago
Hard links only save you from Dropbox deleting the files. If instead they trash the file contents you're still out of luck.
- codetrotter 7y ago
  If you have that little faith in Dropbox why are you even using it? And how do you imagine that it would happen that Dropbox would randomly trash the contents of your files? And if it was that buggy why the bug be limited to just the files in your ~/Dropbox/? By that argument you might as well say that it could trash any file owned by your user. And if you believe Dropbox to be likely to have such serious bugs, why just Dropbox and not other software you are using? For example Chromium or Firefox? Or any other piece of software? Seems less like a serious concern and more like trying to think up any imaginable thing that could conceivably go wrong no matter how unlikely.
  - chongli 7y ago
    And how do you imagine that it would happen that Dropbox would randomly trash the contents of your files? Lots of ways. Suppose they tried to implement a 3-way merge system (a la git) to resolve conflicts in your synced files. It's easy to see that going terribly wrong if they implement it incorrectly. It's proprietary software as a service. That means they could conceivably make a breaking change like that without even notifying you, the user, and cause data loss.
7y ago