No one commits as they write each line of code. There's always code in flux and you are not integrating with everyone else every minute. Branches vs. on-trunk

No one commits as they write each line of code. There's always code in flux and you are not integrating with everyone else every minute. Branches vs. on-trunk misses the mark, IMO: the question is what's your practices like for how frequently changes get integrated. There's multiple dimensions of freedom in how you do things. Branching is a nice tool to have. Avoiding long-lived feature branches is best (particularly with a big subset of the team working in them). (But, dang, sometimes you need these abilities, too, so having a workflow that supports them well is good).