Waltzing with Branches
summary
Explains when branches actually buy risk reduction versus when they just hide problems, using concrete contrasts: Google’s monorepo with 10,000 devs (20+ changes/min, pushes every ~12s backed by 100 million tests), Netflix’s Chaos Monkey for deliberate failures, and common patterns like release, feature and shelving branches, Git Flow/gated checkins, Jenkins CI, and the pain of merge debt. Gives practical alternatives—feature toggles, automation, CI discipline, pairing/mobbing and heavy test/monitoring—to show what tools and numbers make no-branch workflows realistic.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Start
- 1:00Cargo Cult Software Engineering
- 12:55Risk: Loss of Productivity
- 16:30Risk Management Strategies
- 26:41Release Branch
- 29:51Cherry Picking
- 34:24Shelving
- 44:12Forking
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