Best practice for managing project variants in Git?

Question

I have to develop two Django projects which share 90% of the same code, but have some variations in several applications, templates and within the model itself.

I\'m

Answer 1

Considering it is a Django / Pinax site, with variants scattered around inside several different applications, I would not recommend using submodules.

The variants should be managed independently in project1 branch and project2 branch, removing the need to "filter" a gitignore result.

If you identify some really common codes, they may end up in a third repo you could then "subtree merged" to project1 and project2 repositories (the meaning of subtree merge strategy being illustrated in this SO answer)

Answer 2

I would try submodules: http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html#submodules

Answer 3

You can use two different git branches for development. When you make changes in one that are common to the other, just git-cherrypick them over. You can push and pull specific branches, too, so that no one ever need know you're working on both of them at the same time.

Answer 4

Move the common code to its own library and make it a dependency of those two projects. This is not a question of version control, but a question of code reuse, design and eliminating duplication.

Answer 5

I would make a third repo where I would place the code that Projects share. Then Project1 and Project2 would have their own repo and they can pull from that "shared" third repo.

I think that your idea of "filtered pull" will make it difficult to mantein.