> branches give you a way to track the branches a commit is a part of which is good for long-running branches (I think of things like master, maybe a long running refactor or major feature branch)
If you always merge "from the right direction", you can follow the first parent line in git and reconstruct which parent is in the master branch (or in the "heavier" branch in general) and which isn't.
In more complicated situations, Mercurial named branches (commit forever carries the branch name) can be helpful. But you can get pretty far with git, too.
If you always merge "from the right direction", you can follow the first parent line in git and reconstruct which parent is in the master branch (or in the "heavier" branch in general) and which isn't.
In more complicated situations, Mercurial named branches (commit forever carries the branch name) can be helpful. But you can get pretty far with git, too.