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Comment by Angostura | Hacker News Reader

OK, this is probably a very dumb question, but I'm trying tio understand the usecase.

I put things that I want to sync with Dropbox in /Dropbox and take out things that I don't want to sync.

Why would I want to leave things in /Dropbox that I don't want on Dropbox?

If you're a Node/JavaScript developer, you might want to keep code in Dropbox, but putting node_modules in there will tank it.

Does it not suggest that node_modules in the source directory isn't a good idea to begin with?

The project directory would contain everything needed for that project including node_modules (which is generated from the package.json)

Every nodejs project is structured this way... node_modules is always sitting next to your src...

It is usually git-ignored, which means it isn't part of the "real" source directory (the one that is shared with other devs). It's a temporary output of the build process, in essence.

I don't use Dropbox, nor am I a Node dev. Why would a node_modules directory tank Dropbox?

Because NPM's first operation is to pull in half the internet as modules so you can write 'Hello World' on your webpage. Thats too many files for the Dropbox client to handle.

This is the same question as why .gitignore files exists. You probably want to leave build files unsynced in your project folder.

The primary purpose of my project folder is to contain my project, including source, dependencies, build output, etc - so it makes sense to me that tools like Git allow you to exclude/ignore parts of it.

But the primary purpose of the Dropbox folder is to sync stuff to Dropbox. The idea that I would put something in my Dropbox folder that I didn't want to sync is bizarre.

It sounds like it's a common case where people put their project folders inside their Dropbox folder. Before today it never occurred to me that anybody would do that.

I do have some projects I periodically Git Bundle into a Dropbox folder though.

Not criticizing anybody's workflow, just surprised it's so common.

Its so I can have my computer burn down, and set up another one, install Dropbox, and continue work uninterrupted.

Hey! This person has a way: https://superuser.com/questions/469776/how-to-exclude-files-...

I don't use Dropbox, but in OneDrive this is a per-computer setting, so I may have some large files that I want to sync on my desktop, but not on my laptop where I only have a 256gb SSD.

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