Do you feel comfortable merging code?

Question

This morning, I read two opinions on refactoring.

• Opinion 1 (Page not present)
• Opinion 2 (Page not present)

They recommend branching (and s

Answer 1

I use svn, it takes less than a minute to branch code. I used to use Clearcase, it took less than a minute to branch code. I've also used other, lesser, SCMs and they either didn't support branches or were too painful to use. Starteam sounds like the latter.

So, if you cannot migrate to a more useful one (actually, I've only heard bad things about Starteam) then you might have to try a different approach: manual branching. This involves checking out your code, copying it to a different directory and then adding it as a new directory. When you need to merge, you'd check out both directories and use WinMerge to perform the merge, checking in the results to the original directory. Awkward and potentially difficult if you continue to use the branch, but it works.

the trick with Branching is not to treat it as a completely new product. It is a branch - a relatively short-lived device used to make changes separately and safely to a main product trunk. Anyone who thinks merging is difficult is either refactoring the code files so much (ie they are renaming, copying, creating new, deleting old) that the branch becomes a completely different thing, or they are keeping the branch so long that the accumulated changes bear little resemblance to the original. You can keep a branch for a long time, you just have to merge your changes back regularly. Do this and branching/merging becomes very easy.