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"Any branching model you choose is ultimately meant to make humans work together more easily to produce software" There are things in this article I agree with

"Any branching model you choose is ultimately meant to make humans work together more easily to produce software" There are things in this article I agree with, and things that I don't, but the quoted point is something that I wish could be universally understood. Some developers commit to the dogma of one blog post or another and forget about the fact that the whole thing is for the _people_ who are writing the code. Branching strategy should help to optimize workflows and minimize friction, regardless of how badly bastardized your approach is vs. its source material.

hinkley 7y ago
I can't seem to get people to agree on the point of unit tests either. Nowhere is this more apparent than when we argue about test coverage %'s. There's a whole bimodal distribution of people very wrong for very different reasons.
- zokier 7y ago
  I feel unit tests are difficult to swallow to some people because they are not used to (or able to) develop code in distinct and definite units. And without units, unit tests are sort of meaningless.
- gumby 7y ago
  I find about half the people don't see the point (mainly can't be bothered). I can cut that group by about a third by telling them "the tests keep other people from breaking your code" (Personally I think tests keep me from breaking my and others' code, but I don't tell them that)
  - gwright 7y ago
    Always helpful to think about your future self as that other person.
draw_down 7y ago
But that’s the rub, isn’t it? For me, it’s frustrating to see people make in-depth, well-considered points about why something is problematic, and have that be met with “well you just need to pick the right tool for the job guys!” It’s such an anodyne and vacuous point to make, precisely because the whole dialog is around whether and when a tool is the right one. Given a job, people will disagree about what the correct tool is. Given a tool people will disagree about what jobs it’s good for. There is no way around this, and there are times when a decision must be made.

hinkley 7y ago

I can't seem to get people to agree on the point of unit tests either. Nowhere is this more apparent than when we argue about test coverage %'s. There's a whole bimodal distribution of people very wrong for very different reasons.

zokier 7y ago
I feel unit tests are difficult to swallow to some people because they are not used to (or able to) develop code in distinct and definite units. And without units, unit tests are sort of meaningless.
gumby 7y ago
I find about half the people don't see the point (mainly can't be bothered). I can cut that group by about a third by telling them "the tests keep other people from breaking your code" (Personally I think tests keep me from breaking my and others' code, but I don't tell them that)
- gwright 7y ago
  Always helpful to think about your future self as that other person.

draw_down 7y ago

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? For me, it’s frustrating to see people make in-depth, well-considered points about why something is problematic, and have that be met with “well you just need to pick the right tool for the job guys!” It’s such an anodyne and vacuous point to make, precisely because the whole dialog is around whether and when a tool is the right one. Given a job, people will disagree about what the correct tool is. Given a tool people will disagree about what jobs it’s good for. There is no way around this, and there are times when a decision must be made.