Are git submodules the only safe way to have working copies within working copies?
git, git-submodules
Solution
It's possible to simply "nest" working copies in Git. So if you clone your program repository, then inside that make a clone of your data files, then you can work with them independently. When Git performs file operations, it searches up the directory tree looking for a `.git` directory, so Git operations performed in the data repository won't affect the program repository. If you do this, you may want to add the name of the data directory to `.gitignore` to reduce noise from the program repository.
Problem
In my scenario, I have a program that analyzes data input files and produces other data output files. I want to version control the program, and I want to version control the data files, and as a matter of preference, I want to have the working copy of the data files within the working copy of the program. I want the program and data to be version controlled separately to reduce "noise". The program does not have a dependency on the data files. If I use git submodules, then when things happen within the data directory (committed updates I think), the version control for the program notes that there's an update with the submodule. Which'd be useful if the program depended on the data, but it doesn't. In such a scenario, is it possible to have a working copy within another working copy without using git submodules?