Title: How to Ship Cleaner Code with A Branching Strategy
Alternate title idea: Branching Strategies for Better Code Manipulation
Nothing can scare a developer more than unorganised codes. They are hard to understand and tend
to have more bugs. Also, it takes longer time to find and resolve issues in messy codes. Running
experimental and unfinished codes into the server may also threaten the existing users’ experience.
It ultimately results in threatening the reliability of a software. Implementing a proper branching
strategy comes in handy in such cases. Specially when your software is highly version based.
What is A Branching Strategy?
Code branching is an ideal way to create and coordinate a development workflow. The term
“branching” refers to categorizing the primary codebase. Multiple sub-categories classify the
codebase into different sections to enable better coordination.
A branching strategy makes sure that the primary codebase stays cleaner, and proficient. It lets
you decide where, when, and how to create a branch. It also allows you integrate new ideas and
modifications easily.
Why Branching Strategy Is Important to Software Teams?
The best way to understand the importance of having a branching strategy is to understand the
danger of not having one. Making unplanned branches can lead you to a jumbled mess. Which is
the worst to handle for a software team. On the contrary, a strategy will offer various benefits in
respect of version control, organization and overall processing.
The version control system makes a copy of the main code-stack once a developer branch it. Any
modifications brought to the stack doesn’t affect any effort from other developers. Thus,
collaborative venture become more effective. At least, under development features doesn’t trigger
any instability disrupting the main code-stack.
Messed up codes, and improper integration can delay future releases. Implementation of a
branching strategy lessens such hassles of a developer team. To get the most optimal result a
branching strategy features:
• Productivity optimization
• Parallel development setup
• Effective promotion path for later released versions, or software
• Cleaner codes and structured releases
• Accommodation of daily changes
A Gateway to Branching Strategy
A solid branching method allows developers team to instantly interact with codes. Changes to
these codes have no effect unless the team tests, or merges them. The team may still let other
developers to cooperate on features and guarantee that their private branch does not deviate much
from the main line.
A branching method can differ based on organizations. However, four methods are the most
popular among all. To choose the appropriate one, developers should have clear idea about all of
them.
No Branching
“No branching” model is also known as the trunk-based development. It entails the whole team
dealing with the same codes. According to this model, a modification first needs testing and
approval. Once approved, only then, the codes get uploaded to the active repository.
This technique is suitable for small businesses or those who practice strong testing process.
Because the strategy mitigates complications. It will also be the best if your program wants to
utilize feature toggles for implementation.
Trunk-based method has some limitations. Like the strategy is not suitable for giant multi-team
facility. One wrong approach can stop an entire progression until it gets fixed.
Release Branching
The concept of the “release branching” represents the concept of a branch containing a release. A
new branch gets formed every time a team deals a new release.
For a large number of employees working on a single branch, using release branching mightn’t be
ideal. It might make the process cumbersome to manage. Release branches usually assure late
cycle development, longer testing cycles, release delays, and hamper different feature merging.
Unless the release cycles are extremely small like of less than two weeks.
Feature Branching
Developers use feature branches usually to collect user stories. Later they merge these stories into
a master branch and deploy it as a complete feature. The method is used to further smoothen a
running delivery process. Moreover, if developers use it combining with toggles, they can decide
the time to expose users to the new features more easily.
This approach requires less delivery time and evaluation cycles. Software team leaders use the
feature branching method for rapid and flash release. To utilize the strategy properly, your team
will need a viable set of features.
Task Branching
Task branching is also known as story branching. It connects a story of a user to any change in the
source code. Within this strategy, every implemented issue owns a different branch. Again, every
branch associate with a particular ID of a user story.
In terms of agility, nothing can be more useful than a user story. So, task branching is potential for
team requiring an agile development procedure. It gives a software team leader flexibility and has
no restriction on releases going to production. Limitation to defect exposure remains the least in
this development process.
Merging Strategies
Depending on the size, or category of your project, you may choose one particular branching
strategy. Or you can combine multiple strategies for any unique requirement. But, after being done
with branching, you must merge.
Different version control systems feature different workflows. But no matter which one you use,
you have to merge different branches into one server eventually. To do it properly, consider
following some helpful guidelines for effective merging. Like documenting your branching
strategy and describe it to the team.
Apart from it, do consider checking out codes within different branches regularly. It will prevent
common merge conflicts. Another good advice is to determine the propagation and integration
scope for the branches. It helps in further jotting down the potential of branches. Which is
necessary for a proper merging.
You should also choose a version control system rich with ample features. Make sure the system
has options to deal with contributors, multiple files, build demands and so on. The more robust
your system, the more precision you will get in branching and merging.
Conclusion
You might struggle to determine and implement the proper branching strategy at first. By
practicing regularly, and fixing issues practically, you will flourish in no time. The primary goal
to use a strategy is to enhance a developer’s team productivity. So, make sure you use a strategy
that your team understand and communicate clearly.
