How to Avoid Branching
Problem:
Best practices for Trunk-Based Development
Goal is Continuous Integration
Really we want Faster Feedback
Complications:
In monolithic codebases, it's hard to make quick changes
Team members need to have the skills to make the changes
The mindset gets in the way of people making a change from one monolithic build
I want refactor mercilessly
I want to release rapidly
100s of developers, with a big legacy codebases
Branches allow you to circumvent fixing underlying issues in the organization
Potential Solutions:
A lot of places could do trunk-based development, but there is resistance like "people will break things" all the time. We have to switch first, experience some pain, but usually shorter than usual.
You might be fine with a well-functioning branching workflow. Why change? Is this the biggest problem to solve?
Fix the smallest "ouch" that the team feels at the moment...eventually trunk-based development will come up.
Shorten your branch lifetime. The shorter-lived branches are one step closer to trunk-based development.