A few years ago I read a blog post [0] on using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles, I loved the idea and it inspired me to create xdot, a minimalist dotfiles manager [1] which I have been using ever since.

[0]: https://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-t...

[1]: https://github.com/malobre/xdot