Easy streets merging with SVN

Friday, 23 January 2009

I was thinking about merging today - what rules represent safe and easy merging - the more I can apply the easier my life would be. This is what I came up with:
  • short lived branches
  • merge as soon after the change as you can
  • tests make you safe
  • automated merge procedure
  • author takes responsibility for merging if fails automated procedure
  • code consists of small classes / methods and has good separation of concerns (thanks to Felix Leipold for that one)
What rules do you try to apply? What do you do when you can't?

2 comments :

Unknown said...

Make the smallest changes possible to achieve your aims on the branch, I.e. Don't make unnecessary small changes (code formatting, removing compiler warnings) or large refactorings (move / rename class / package). Trying to avoid deleting files.

twicezero said...

Oh yeah, that's a good one i should have included. Refactor on truck.