> I'm not quite as adverse to long lived branches as some seem to be, especially with CI systems that can automatically detect merge conflicts when they first o

> I'm not quite as adverse to long lived branches as some seem to be, especially with CI systems that can automatically detect merge conflicts when they first occur and run automated tests on the merged code base. This system of branching is clearly the best way to maximize large merge conflicts, if you think about it. Let me restate this: The main reason that you branch (to avoid conflicts with other devs) is the single scenario that this system does the absolute worst at. Conversely, if you're not having problems with this system, you never needed it in the first place.