Trying to find a good strategy using Git for personal development on local/personal machine

Question

A noob here.

I have a personal Macbook and I want to use Git to track the changes etc. I want to just init a repo on my macbook and work there. Is this a good idea?

What if: I have a main repo somewhere in my Macbook HD, like, /Users/user/projects/project1 and clone it to another area on my macbook where I actually perform development? But there is a lot of redundancy in this.

I am a little confused and want to know what are the usual steps folks take in a similar personal development environment.

Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

I use Hg instead of Git but the workflow you just describes more or less what I do.

The only thing I'd add is that I got a Windows Live Mesh account since it auto-syncs to the cloud and works on Mac as well (its still Beta but I haven't had much trouble) but there are probably other cloud storage providers.

Anyway, I create a core repository inside the Live Mesh folder and then clone from that to a working directory. The code on my Mesh account is always a last known good and I often will have 2 or more working clones of the same project on a given machine where I am trying different approaches to solve the same problem.

Answer 2

It's fine to just git init where your working, you don't need to clone it to another area.

Just remember you still need to back up.

Answer 3

I want to just init a repo on my macbook and work there. Is this a good idea?

Yes, that is a good idea. That is exactly what I do.

What if: I have a main repo somewhere in my Macbook HD, like, /Users/user/projects/project1 and clone it to another area on my macbook where I actually perform development? But there is a lot of redundancy in this.

Your repository will live in /Users/user/projects/project1/.git/

You then checkout the repository to the directory /Users/user/projects/project1 and work on it there. You don't need to clone anything.

Answer 4

I find this flow very good for personal and group development: http://nvie.com/git-model

This guy even developed additional git commands to work with this flow (http://github.com/nvie/gitflow/tree/0.2). You should try it out yourself!

Answer 5

Just make the one repo. With git's powerful branching, you don't need two repos on the same machine. A repo somewhere else is always a good idea, in case something happens to your computer.

Answer 6

I like to have a bare repo cloned somewhere else. It allows me to push without any problem.
I will have:

• a bare repo cloned on my local drive, always accessible, preferably linked to some online synchronization service like DropBox.
• a cloned repo as a bundle (one file), where I can also push, but located on an USB key (that way I have also a backup which doesn't rely on Internet access)

So even for solo development, cloning make sense provided it doesn't involve only your local desktop, but also some external storage.