Re: [PATCH 4/4] gitfaq: add entry about syncing working trees

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi brian,

On Wed, 20 Oct 2021, brian m. carlson wrote:

> Users very commonly want to sync their working tree across machines,

I was confused at first, because I do sync my working trees frequently. I
do this via `git push` and `git pull`, though.

Maybe clarify that you mean rsync, or sync services like DropBox and
OneDrive? I see that you mention "cloud syncing service" below, but I
believe that it might be better to lead with the examples.

> often to carry across in-progress work or stashes.  Despite this not
> being a recommended approach, users want to do it and are not dissuaded
> by suggestions not to, so let's recommend a sensible technique.
>
> The technique that many users are using is their preferred cloud syncing
> service, which is a bad idea.  Users have reported problems where they
> end up with duplicate files that won't go away (with names like "file.c
> 2"), broken references, oddly named references that have date stamps
> appended to them, missing objects, and general corruption and data loss.
> That's because almost all of these tools sync file by file, which is a
> great technique if your project is a single word processing document or
> spreadsheet, but is utterly abysmal for Git repositories because they
> don't necessarily snapshot the entire repository correctly.  They also
> tend to sync the files immediately instead of when the repository is
> quiescent, so writing multiple files, as occurs during a commit or a gc,
> can confuse the tools and lead to corruption.
>
> We know that the old standby, rsync, is up to the task, provided that
> the repository is quiescent, so let's suggest that and dissuade people
> from using cloud syncing tools.  Let's tell people about common things
> they should be aware of before doing this and that this is still
> potentially risky.  Additionally, let's tell people that Git's security
> model does not permit sharing working trees across users in case they
> planned to do that.  While we'd still prefer users didn't try to do
> this, hopefully this will lead them in a safer direction.

The remainder of the commit message is very clear.

Thank you,
Dscho