Oh, fork it

Lost…

At work recently, I was trying to find a GitHub repository that I knew I had previously seen a while back.

But I couldn't find it.

Normally, I would "star" possibly useful repositories: it wasn't in that starred list. After spending a fair length of time trying to rediscover the repository by many searches on GitHub and on search engines, I concluded that maybe the author had simply deleted the repository or their account.

And so I gave up.

…and found

Sometime later, while reading a related GitHub issue, I spotted I had written a comment linking to the repository. It was still there, just not easily discoverable.¹

Lessons

Things shared on the internet have no guarantee of longevity. You are subject to the whims either of service providers either disappearing entirely, or removing a user and all their content.

Users themselves may also delete things they've previously shared. Especially in a post-GDPR world, where people are likely far more aware of their ability and rights to do just that.

Even if I had starred the elusive repository, that would not have helped if the user deleted the repository or the user's account disappeared. For popular repositories, there is no likely threat of them vanishing entirely overnight, because there are probably several existing forks. And users may well restore a copy of such a deleted repository from local clones.

But if a repository is obscure, then that published version may be the only source readily available.

So, if there is some GitHub — or other online Git remote — repository that looks interesting or useful, but is relatively obscure, then forking it is prudent, and a one click operation without requiring you to store a copy locally.²

It may not be that often when people or organisations decide to delete all their code, but it does happen. Even if you may not necessarily have the final version before deletion, something may be better than a distant memory.