git-flow-pattern.md

git-flow-pattern.md

"Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance."

• https://git-scm.com

That said you can always learn more.

The more you undertand and use something the more transparent it will be.

If you find yourself struggling with a tool you need to work more with it. Practice.

I highly suggest you practice with personal repos.

Learning Git

Book

Pro Git http://git-scm.com/book

Tutorials

1. Atlassian Git Tutorial

   • https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials

2. Learn Version Control with Git

   A step-by-step course for the complete beginner

   • http://www.git-tower.com/learn/git/ebook/command-line/advanced-topics/merge-conflicts

Articles

1. Git From the Bottom

   • http://ftp.newartisans.com/pub/git.from.bottom.up.pdf

Get a good visual Git viewer

• GitX

• http://gitx.frim.nl

• Remember to view 'all branches'

• Command line

• $ git log –all –oneline –graph –decorate

Technigues to learn well

Become comfortable with the following:

• Creating a repo
• Branching
• Merging (different types)
• Deleting branches local and remote
• Pushing to origin and tracking
• Creating a local tracking branch

Git Flow (A branching workflow)

• There are other workflows
• This isn't necessarilly the best
• It is popular so you will find it elsewhere
• You may be familar
• It's simple enough and if followed everyone will be comfortable in all the repos

Original Article 'A successful Git branching model'

http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/

Cheatsheet

• Very useful
• http://danielkummer.github.io/git-flow-cheatsheet/

Another opinion 'GitFlow considered harmful'

• http://endoflineblog.com/gitflow-considered-harmful

The Pattern (My version)

• The Git Flow branch model is based on two long running branches.
• Master and develop exist while features and releases branch off of these and are merged back.
• Features branch off and back onto develop
• Releases branch off of develop and are merged back into develop and master
• Releases are pushed to production
• Releases at the minimum include a bumped version number and rollbacks are to previous release branches
• The idea of hotfixes is ignored. Last minute fixes can be handled on the release branch
• There can be exceptions but you should know what you are doing

1. Initialize the repo to include master and devlop

   • Clean repo
   • Get rid of old branches including old 'dev' branches
   • Remove old remote branches (this can be done in a script)
   • Merge to master and make sure things are up todate

2. Initialize Git Flow

   • Create develop
   • Master and develop

3. Use feature and release branches only

Git Extensions

• These are scripts that help automate some of the Git Flow tasks.

• I recommend getting a good understanding of Git and the ideas behind Git Flow first

• Then these will make sense and the 'magic' then do will be understood.

• Original

• git-flow

• https://github.com/nvie/gitflow

• Better

• I wanted to be able to support –no-ff on develop merges

• git-flow-avh

• https://github.com/petervanderdoes/gitflow-avh

Local Enhancements

• I have these to further reduce the amount of details I need to remember
• The git-finish-release is the most important
• It has the --no-ff -k to leave the feature branch and merge it without a fast forward

1. Add to local bashrc

   function git-flow {
     echo "git-start-feature <feature-name>"
     echo "git-finish-feature <feature-name>"
     echo "git-start-release <release-name>"
     echo "git-finish-relase <release-name>"
   }
   
   function git-start-feature {
      echo "todo"
     if [ -z "$1" ]
      then
       echo "Enter feature name"
     else                 
       echo $1
       git flow feature start $1
     fi
   }
   
   function git-finish-feature {
     if [ -z "$1" ]
      then
       echo "Enter feature name"
     else                 
       echo $1
       git flow feature finish --no-ff -k $1
     fi
   }
   
   function git-start-release {
      echo "todo"
     if [ -z "$1" ]
      then
       echo "Enter release name"
     else                 
       echo $1
       git flow release start $1
     fi
   }
   
   function git-finish-release {
     if [ -z "$1" ]
      then
       echo "Enter release name"
     else                 
       echo $1
       git flow release finish -k $1
     fi
   }
   

Summary

1. Install git-flow-avh

   • https://github.com/petervanderdoes/gitflow-avh
   • brew install git-flow-avh

2. Install Local Functions (above)

   • https://gist.github.com/bradlucas/5ea1cd2f25cd18d79a27#file-git-flow-enhancements-sh

3. Initialize your repos

   • Make sure everything is up to date on master
   • If you have old 'dev' branches get rid of them
   • If you have a 'develop' make sure it is merged to master
   • git flow init

4. Use features for each development task

   • git flow feature start FEATURE_NAME
   • git flow feature finish FEATURE_NAME

5. Use release for 'releases'

   • Release are version numbers

   • RELEASE_NUMBER = 0.1.3

   • git flow release start RELEASE_NUMBER

   • bump_version

   • commit

   • git flow release public RELEASE_NUMBER

   • or

   • push origin -u release/RELEASE_NUMBER

   • origin/release/RELEASE_NUMBER is pushed to productions

   • After release is pushed then finish it

   • This will merge back into master and develop

   • git flow release finish RELEASE