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Comment by ErrantX | Hacker News Reader

You're never going to work directly in the Dropbox directory,

That is never really backed up, and doesn't make a lot of sense.

I've been doing this for a while - but using Dropbox as my working directory [1]. All he is doing here is using Dropbox as a backup - but such services exist (e.g. BitBucket) and are easier to sync to (one push and you don't have to wait for Dropbox to then sync).

Dropbox is useful for maintaining a consistent working directory between computers. I can hack around at work, go home to finish up and then commit. Brilliant :)

1. http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2010/04/a-nifty-way-to-manage-c...

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Can't believe I've never thought of this.

So just to be clear - your working directory is in dropbox and you edit, compile etc in place and no bandwidth, sync , whatever issues?

I've never noticed bandwidth/sync issues. Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes to get it's head round things; but not often (Dropbox really is great at "just working").

It also syncs over the local network which speeds things up no end when I work at home.

I don't compile any of these because they are python, php or ruby projects (I only write C at work :P). I do have a Ruby/Redis project that I run from the Dropbox folder for testing - that has never generated any problems to my knowledge.

I do the same thing, except with C# instead. I've never had any issues with compilation.

It's not just backup because you can share directories across dropbox accounts, and dropbox maintains that central repo on as many machines as you want.

Dropbox works for me where bitbucket doesn't (jay to corporate firewall).

use http URLs instead of hg://

One of the best things about hg is that it doesn't have an hg: protocol.

Last time I tried BitBucket it just didn't work over my employer's http proxy. Googled it and it was some unresolved issue back then, lots of people had the same problem.

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