Eclipse egit, problems with collaboration & tips - eclipse

Me and my friend are two days into using Git now but we still lack the know-how to use it properly and utilize its full power though it is a tremendous step in the right direction, compared to using Facebook messages to sending and syncing files. We have searched over the net and most of the guides for Egit either assume you work alone or that someone else clones and branches off to their own repo. However we are collaborating on the same project (a 2D RPG) and don't know how to properly use Egit to work together. Some of the problems we face:
1. We had the exact same copy of the project, he changed some of the methods we used, I changed some of the classes and resources we use. He committed and pushed to repo first. Now I cannot push or commit or even pull because of conflicts in the files (repo vs local) which Egit complains must be resolved.
2. How do you properly synchronize code that you are collaborating on? Lets say either one of us is first out to push to repo, what must the other (the puller) do to make sure his own code is not completely overwritten, only accept parts that have changed, parts that we think should be changed.
3. Do we always have to make a (new) local branch, pull to this, see changes, and merge the changes we want with the master/main? How do you properly do this.
Any input is most welcome, we are already much more efficient with our broken knowledge, more will only do good :)

Ok here are my answers:
We had the exact same copy ... because of conflicts in the files (repo vs local) which Egit complains must be resolved.
First you should make sure you use separate branches so that you can always commit.
Then you have to resolve any conflicts when you merge.
How do you properly synchronize code ...
Use separate branches to make sure code is ok before you pull it into master branch.
Do we always have to make a (new) local branch ...
Yes, git is built on the assumption that this is the best way to work. "Everything is local"
This is the way I or we usually use branches:
Main dev branch (Master)
Project branch, used to merge in features added by this project. When all features have been added and seems to work this is pushed/merged into the master branch.
Developer branches, every developer has his/her own branch to develop a specific feature before pushing/merging that into the project branch.
What could sometimes be good to have is also specific release branches. I.e. when a project has merged all added features into the master branch and everything seems ok, a release branch is created for regression testing. This branch will eventually contain the released software when all testing has been done.
The benefit of doing a separate release branch is that the main branch can continue to be developed, but if a fast bugfix has to be done on an earlier release it can be done on that release branch and then later merged into the master branch.
//jk

Related

How to create a Production branch from a Git repo

We have a GitHub project (master), every member of the team have a Fork of the project into their own repository.
Once a developer fixed something he create a new branch inside his local forked repo and commit that into remote repository and after that they request a Pull Request so that change go into the master reposiroty.
We publish to production "manually" once a week but we have had issues in production because accidentaly developer had committed to their forked repository and other developer with higher privilegies accept the changes and merge that into master repo, then someone else publish to production and he didnt knew that those new changes didn't passed to QA process.
So, what I want is to create like a Production Repository, so when we have the code in master repo that we know is stable and working then create like a Production branch so if by mistake something is commited and merge into master repo then the code for production publish is not affected.
Any clue or best practice to do this?
Not sure I'm understanding the question correctly, but you can add as many remote repositories as you like. There is a section in the Pro Git book called Working with Remotes that discusses this thoroughly.
In my experience, separating development and production code is typically done with a branching model such as git-flow. You can create separate repositories to solve this problem if you like, but doing so is unnecessary. This is because if developer A submits a PR that's merged by developer B, then developer C will get a non-fast-forward error when they try to commit upstream. This is called a subversion-style workflow. Per the docs:
Git will not allow you to push if someone has pushed since the last time you fetched, so a centralized model where all developers push to the same server works just fine.
If commits to the upstream branch are not being fetched and merged appropriately before pushing, then someone has likely taken it upon themselves to rewrite history.
Your git workflow is good enough to take care of this issue.
First, to fix the issue:
Treat unintended code push as bug and fix it as you would fix any other bug. Best person to perform this activity would be the developer who pushed that code. Developer can just fix it in their fork and submit a pull request. Try not to add any other unrelated code with this pull request.
About Production Branch or Repo:
I don't think you need another Production Branch/Repo (you already have one). As it happened with your current PROD repo, accidental code push can make it to new Branch/Repo too.
Instead use tags/releases feature in GitHub. Whenever state of code in master repo is prod ready, tag it and use the tag for production publish.

New Branch in TFS 2015 merges completely in Baseless merge

Setting up new projects and branch designs in TFS 2015. This detail may be significant - I'm using it for PowerBuilder projects, not .NET - VS2015 is used to set up branches and perform merges, the files themselves will be checked in and out in PowerBuilder. Far as I can see that shouldn't make a difference, but mentioning it in case I've missed something
Using the following sample layout:
Prod branches to/from Mod, down to Dev. New CO projects branch from Prod (so they always start with a fresh set of the latest live code), then merged (via baseless merge) to the DEV branch, and re-parented once the connection is set up. That way the users wouldn't have to remember to do a baseless merge; Dev will become the default merge target
Merges would them go back up from Dev to Mod, then back to Prod
The issue is that as a test, I tried the baseless merge after the branch, expecting no files to be merged, as nothing has changed yet in any branch. But the merge from the CO branch to Dev merged ALL files. Not an issue now since there's no changes in place, but would be quite a problem once several projects have been merged to DEV.
After that merge, I made a small change in the project and tried a merge; only the one changed file merged.
My best guess is that since the new CO branch was created after the Dev Branch, it was seen as everything in it is newer than the Dev branch, so it rolled over everything. Not sure how it would treat changes in Dev not seen in the Prod branch yet, haven't tested that scenario. It SHOULD at the very least tell me there's changes that I need to merge, but I fear it might just roll over them with the "new" files in the CO branch.
The question is, how can/do I tell the system that this new branch is "not newer" than the Dev branch? Does indeed the fact that these are PowerBuilder files somehow limit the ability of TFS of recognizing versioning in some way?
Or even more simply, is the branch layout I'm trying not the best method?
EDIT - here's the structure I'm currently using for my .NET projects - I was trying to use the layout above instead for the new code.
It uses the "Main" branch suggested below in the comments, but since I'm pulling "CO Branches" from Dev, I get code currently being tested, and not pristine Prod code. I'm assuming trying to branch and re-parent from Prod in this layout would result in the same scenario.
So is this the better way to go after all?
You may have a Main branch, which is the junction branch between development and release branches, representing a stable snapshot of the product.
You can branch from Main to Dev, Mod and Prod, when the work on Dev branch finished, merge from Dev to Main, when you want to release the product, merge from Main to Prod. So when you want to branch from the latest live code, you can branch from Main. In this way, you can merge from CO to Main, then Main to Dev or Main to Prod. All changesets will be reserved.

SVN changes to trunk when working copy is pointing to a branch

I have set up an SVN repository that currently has the stable code in trunk and a branch on which new development is happening.
I would like to fix bugs on trunk and have the people working on the branch pick up bug fixes by merging from trunk on a regular basis. My problem is that I can't figure out how to access the trunk version from Eclipse when I need to fix bugs, then access the branch when I do new development.
The only thing I can think of is using the SVN Switch utility to swap between trunk and branch. But, this seems very clunky. I tried switching without committing some changes I made to one of the files, and the file was then in a conflicted state. This doesn't seem like the right way to me.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any help.
You have not access trunk-version from Eclipse, because if you want to have sync-merge from trunk to branch you have to have Working Copy of branch, and ^/trunk will be referenced only on merge (which is Eclipse-specific interface)
The normal way to do this is to use switch. Before beginning work you should do switch to make sure you are on the branch where you want the changes to go when you commit. If you have local changes, it is OK, but when you switch it is just like doing an update. You can get conflicts if SVN needs to make updates to the files you have local modification in.
If you do not have any local modifications or unversioned files, then switch will not create conflicts.

svn: merging changes from a branch to a working copy without updating trunk

My development team recently doubled in size from one (myself) to two. As the sole developer, I was maintaining the trunk as the stable version of our software. I'd make changes in my working copy, test, and only push to trunk once I was sure it was stable.
With the new team member we are trying to come up with the best flow for co-developing the codebase. We have decided that trunk will stay stable; changes are pushed there only after code review and thorough testing. The teammate will create feature branches for features he works on; when he requests a code review, I will do it and then once approved, he will merge the branch into trunk and delete the branch.
We are both using eclipse and the subclipse plugin to manage our working copies.
The problem is that while I can view differences between my working copy and his branch (Team -> Compare To -> Branch), I do not know how to get the code from his branch to merge with my working copy. I want to be able to get his changes without losing any local changes I have made, run his code locally, and have none of this affect trunk. That seems to rule out the option in Eclipse/SVN to switch to another branch/tag/revision, since I need to have his code merged with mine (in order to make sure my working copy's code is consistent with my local database).
We've looked at the SVN Patch feature, instead of using branches perhaps he should send his changes over through a patch which I run?
So the concrete question here is: how do I merge/incorporate changes from a branch with my working copy without touching trunk? I would also be grateful to get suggestions on how we should implement our workflow in a way that takes advantage of the power of svn and eclipse in a way I am missing.
Both of you should have checkouts of trunk and any branches you're both working on. When he is ready to have his branch merged into trunk, you should:
Ensure that his branch builds successfully.
Ensure that your trunk checkout is pristine (no SVN added, modified, deleted, unversioned or ignored files).
Conduct the merge, resolving any conflicts with his help.
Perform a code review, including ensuring that trunk is stable with his changes.
Commit the merge.
Conduct the merge outside of Eclipse, using the SVN command-line. I've seen enough questions here on SO related to Eclipse and Subclipse that tells me the plugin is unreliable.
If it was me managing this workflow, I'd have two checkouts of trunk: one which is meant for merging and is always in a pristine condition, and another in which I can actively develop. That way, I wouldn't need to create a patch of my changes, then merge, then apply the patch.
Hope this helps.
The sad truth is that SVN will probably not be fit for this pattern. Branching creates a lot of pain in Subversion
Check here to get more details.
It was enough for me to update the branch from command line with 'svn up'.

checked in project file and branching

I have checked in my project settings to git. My question is what happens in the case when you have branches that might not have the most recent settings. It's almost as if you want the project file to be always off of "master". Thoughts?
We do branch when we want to work on sth. different on some point. When you finish the little job in the branch, you can merge it back to your dev branch and leave the branches there. I think keep the main dev branches as latest would be fine.