GIT FLOW
by Titiksha Daga in General
A developer’s day starts by pulling the code from the project’s Git repository and ends by merging the code to the Git repository. Even though Git is such an important and necessary source code management tool for a developer and yet only some of the developers have drawn upon the features that Git offers.
Branching is the most prominent feature of Git, yet it gets used ineffectively. Some of the developers don’t manage their code for features and releases using branches. Some don’t delete the obsolete and unused branches. Consequently, the team faces numerous errors, conflicts, and confusions at the time of reviewing and maintenance. Moreover, if multiple developers work in the same branch then its a nightmare for the developer.
So, how to tackle these problems in the most efficient way? Vincent Driessen had proposed a model that follows a cycle of creating branches, merging branches and deletion of unwanted and obsolete branches. This abstract idea was materialized into the git-flow command toolset and the software is called Git Flow. Git Flow automates the process of source code management for the developer.
Git Flow is a powerful tool to define a standard for Git branches. The standard defines the roles of each branch and how and when should they interact. The branches can be used to add new features to the application or for preparing, maintenance and keep track of releases of the project. You can also experiment with different ideas without affecting the current development code by creating a different branch.
So summarizing Git Flow is a technique that allows the user to use Git in the most advantageous way possible. You can do anything and everything with Git and this prevent the blunders we as users make when merging our code. The approach that Git Flow uses helps in reducing those blunders.