
Why does Martin Fowler not understand feature branches? - philliphaydon
https://jamesmckay.net/2011/07/why-does-martin-fowler-not-understand-feature-branches/
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evadne
[2011]

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180919111616/https://jamesmcka...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180919111616/https://jamesmckay.net/2011/07/why-
does-martin-fowler-not-understand-feature-branches/)

~~~
ddtaylor
archive.org is amazing.

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avar
Usually "why is this on HN?" is pointless whining, but in this case I'll make
an exception. Really, why?

This is a 7-year old rant referencing a video that's no longer available (the
original URL has gone away), so there's no way for anyone to make sense of
this old debate. The original page is on archive.org, but the video was
embedded via Flash and doesn't work anymore:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20111231235506/http://www.though...](https://web.archive.org/web/20111231235506/http://www.thoughtworks.com/perspectives/30-06-2011-continuous-
delivery)

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jammycakes
Hi, author here.

As other commenters have noted, this post is seven years old. My position on
feature branches has evolved (and softened somewhat as well) in the meantime.

I posted an update about 18 months ago:

[https://jamesmckay.net/2017/01/martin-fowler-and-feature-
bra...](https://jamesmckay.net/2017/01/martin-fowler-and-feature-branches-
revisited/)

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Pxtl
> Error establishing a database connection

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timavr
Interesting arguments people had when the world was young.

If I do multiple commits into main a day, will probably get a visit from CTO.

Will test tomorrow.

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fluffybunnyfeet
"Error establishing a database connection"

Why does James McKay not understand website configuration?

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wruza
>The reason why people think feature branches are for long-running epics is
because that is the way that old school centralised tools have taught them to
think. They’ve made branching and merging hard through poor tooling, algorithm
support and architecture, so people do everything in trunk except for epics,
then they run into problems and the whole pattern becomes self-reinforcing.

Very well self-assuring that git predecessors were complete idiots. Not even
worth to read it further, probably.

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bsaul
can anyone provide some context ?

~~~
jufemaiz
Agreed. It's 7 years on so... did it get missed in round 1?

