[quote name='Josh Petrie' timestamp='1330722763' post='4918703']
I use mercurial or git (I prefer mercurial) for code, or svn if I have to. Dropbox syncs my dotfiles and configurations and such.

Why not mercurial or git for dotfile/config as well? I've been using git for that with great results.
[/quote]




Because with a VCS, I have to remember to push or commit the changes before they are available elsewhere. With Dropbox and symlinks, this is automatic. I used to use Subversion to store dot files (ages before git was on the scene), and when doing so I never found a need to look at the history of the files either. VCS has always seemed like extra overhead for this process.

It's a little easier to bootstrap the initial dot file setup on a brand new machine, especially on a machine that typically uses actual dot files (*nix) because they tend to have git or hg already installed these days. So my approach to installing Dropbox and double-clicking a batch file or running a shell script to prime the symlinks does have more overhead. However, I switch between configured machines for more frequently than I set up brand new ones, so the extra overhead is worth it for the automatic sync I get from Dropbox.

I use git on windows -- the only real caveats with that are that there are some outstanding issues regarding filename case-sensitivity between Windows and *nix systems. Mercurial is also nice, and I would consider it more strongly if regular windows-*nix back-and-forth was a major concern for my previous project -- as it was at the time, I chose git because I had already used Mercurial before and wanted to try it out.

Fossil is another interesting distributed VCS -- interesting because it has an in-built, versioned WIKI and bug tracker.

Svn is the top-of-the-heap on the centralized systems as far as I'm concerned, though I prefer distributed since getting my head around it.


As far as OPs question, I like Hodgeman's solution of <favorite Distributed VCS here> + shared folder + network-mapped-drive + clone.

I use a 32mb USB memory stick between my work PC and my home PC (to work from home without having to take work pc home).

Works flawlessly.