Is hosting a git repository on a Windows network share a terrible idea?

Zargontapel@latte.isnot.coffee to Programming@beehaw.org – 8 points –

I just joined a new team (very small: four developers in total, with two of those leaving soon). The two original developers set up the git repo on a folder in a Windows network share.

Am I taking crazy pills, or is that a bad idea? Our organization does have github/gitlab/bitbucket available, so is there any good reason not to use those hosted solutions?

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Are you concerned about corruption due to multiple users? Are you using the repo in the intended way? Then it's fine. Git has locking mechanisms. Pull, work, commit, push.

I can't exactly put my finger on it, but something feels off. For example, on my first day, I wasn't able to view the files in Windows Explorer (or clone the repo, actually), so the other dev just gave me a zip file of the repo. There's something fishy going on, and I'm trying to figure it out.

Since it's on a network share, there's the extra overhead of managing the file system permissions. And you probably hadn't received access at the point.

That probably is the case, but in my mind I'm also questioning if they're backing it up regularly, what prevents someone from going in and deleting the files, etc.

Sure, let's hope they have a backup policy in place for best practice. But also it is kinda decentralized anyway. Every dev is going to have their local repo, and that is essentially a backup.