The mythical second page of this website:
Positives, negatives, and your boss (What has Git ever done for us)?
To answer Reg’s question* from the index page: There are several factors that go into considering whether or not to use GitHub and GitHub Pages for a project. It is a wonderul tool to have available freely and should certainly be used when collaboration between large groups of individuals is required or when documents are shared among many people and it is more efficient to store them on a service that isn’t Dropbox.
This page deals with some of the pros and cons of using GitHub and repositories to store data/code. Other information can also be found for questions pertaining to Git HEAD state and undoing commits can be found at this page
Some positives of using GitHub
GitHub Pages is a powerful tool that allows files to be stored in a public repository online, with hosting by GitHub. This is especially useful when one desires to keep track of lots of code or other files that require input from many people.
Some negatives of using GitHub
Unfortunately, Github is not particularly useful for storing data especially that which is confidential. For example, in the case of health sciences data where there are often substantial restraints on the sharing/publication of data, it would not be wise to upload data with specific identifiers that could e.g. be traced back to an individual.
Another possible problem is that of intellectual property protection: Code stored in a public repository is public which means anyone can have a copy. Fine if your goal is to disseminate your code, not fine if it isn’t.
Your boss has no idea how to use GitHub…should they?
GitHub is excellent for storing data and collaborating pn projects. However, the standard access options are not private and therefore data/code can be easily accessed by the general public. Privacy is an option, for a fee, with relatively limited usage.