A merge a day keeps the conflicts away
June 16, 2021
Merge a minimum of one PR each day. Make small PRs. Don't worry if the feature is incomplete, only that each PR works.At one of the clients I’m helping, I did something last week that made me feel slightly bad.
I merged a pull request that refactored a couple database methods.
Why did I feel bad?
Because it broke another developer’s work in progress.
He end up with some accidental reversions, due to bad merge conflict resolution, and ultimately ended up completely abandoning a week-old feature branch and starting from scratch.
But then again, I felt only slightly bad. Why only slightly?
Because the real failure here wasn’t my refactor, it was the week-old feature branch.
Today I started coaching this other developer on the how-and-why of real continuous integration: the practice of merging into master
multiple times per day.
I started with the simple guideline: He should be merging a minimum of one of your PRs each day. So I asked him to make small PRs, and not worry if the feature is complete, only that each PR works.
🤞
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