On Thursday, 26 January 2017 16:12:43 UTC-5, Philip Oakley wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > > I'm looking for a git branching and merge strategy for merge with lots of > conflicts requiring multiple people. I can make it work, and I understand > git, but it all seems kind of awkward and it feels like there must be a > better way. > > I've got a big git merge to do. There are lots of conflicts and it > requires many people to resolve them all. > > The only way to handle this in git, AFAIK, is to start the merge and then > just commit all files with conflicts in them and then let different people > work on the different conflicts, committing them as they go. That is great > for resolving the conflicts. In the diagram below, branchA is merged into > branchB with merge commit M. The code in the repo at M is full of > conflicts. Many of the conflicts in the merge are actually resolved in > commits x, y, z. > > o---o---o---o---- branchA > \ \ > \-o---o-M---x---y---z branchB > > > But I worry that the above strategy is not good for git's merge tracking > and future merges. Because if we do a 'git checkout branchA; git merge > branchB`, git will erroneously try to merge x,y,z into branchA. > > I *could *create branchB2 where I re-do the original merge but then just `git > checkout z -- . ` and commit that as the merge commit. That would work > well for the git merge tracking. Then I would keep branchB just as > historical reference for "who fixed what conflict and why" during the merge. > > > The above would all work, but it seems so un-git-like. It feels like there > must be a much better and established practice, yet I have not found > anything online. Is there a better way to do this? > > Thanks, > Steve > > p.s. I'm aware of answers like "Your workflow is broken, with git you > merge often and therefore never have lots of conflicts." It's just too long > a discussion to argue that point, so let's just avoid it, ok. > > > OK, so what is your workflow, and work products, in a little more detail - > how is it made to 'work' at the moment? > > Is the project well modularised with no file >100 lines (excepting, maybe, > well developed libraries that never change), or are they mega-beast files > with a mix of long and short functions/objects/procedures ? > > How are the review / merges done? do you have a small core team that hangs > together that can work on each issue, or is it multiple functions having a > review by committee that then depatches instructions to a poor coder to try > and implement before the cycle continues.. > > Do you have any intermediate work products (in the current process) where > some parts are fully merged, and then you can move on to the other parts; > or it's all partly merged as an intermediate work product for another round? > > What is the smallest work element you could extract and get merged (done, > done style) from beneath the management's radar, as that you can do (with > proper commit message) in Git. > > Have you seen the Mikado method (aka pick up sticks) as applied to > correctling faulty software. https://vimeo.com/54450491 is a nice > presentation from Lean Agile Scotland > <https://vimeo.com/leanagilescotland> a few years ago. > > -- > Philip > [If I were you I wouldn't start from here, he said] >
Thanks for your reply Philip. I'm really not looking for "SW development workflow" advice. I'm looking for the best way to handle in git the situation I describe above. This is a huge corporate product. (If you're asking about files with 100 lines of code, you cannot begin to believe how far off you are.) Imagine, if you will, that the XBOX is based on Windows XP, and now it wants to merge all of its XBOX-specific changes (which permeate much of its version of the Windows XP code) with Windows 10. All the while, nothing is static: the XBOX coding continues, as do the Windows 10 patches. Once this is done, in several months, the XBOX code will remain based on Windows 10 for several years. In a few years, this will all be one again when the XBOX merges with Windows 2020. (This product is neither a gaming nor a Microsoft product, but the analogy is pretty good.) Steve -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Git for human beings" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
