[samuellb]

I agree the blog post should warn about it - but it can be perfectly secure if you do it correctly. I usually put all public files inside a directory inside the repo, e.g. public_html, and/or block access to dot-files altogether in the server configuration. E.g. in Apache 2:

  <Files ~ "^\.">
      Order allow,deny
      Deny from all
  </Files>