Subversion - should anyone be developing off the trunk?

Question

When using Subversion, should developers be working off the trunk or should the trunk be only used for merges from each individual developer\'s branch and watched by a conti

Answer 1

There are a number of methods for working with version control systems for parallel development. There's nothing wrong with the one that you suggest above - but there are advantages and disadvantages attached to each. I've worked in both ways.

Developing off trunk and cutting release branches is fine, but if you need to perform an emergency production release you end up having to patch the release branch and releasing that again - means building a branch in your CI system.

Working in branches and preserving the main trunk (monitoring with a continuous integration system) is also fine, but can lead to conflict issues with developers in multiple branches making changes.

Take a look at the following site also:

http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/acme/branching/

It discusses a number of branching patterns for parallel development including:

• S1. Mainline
• S2. Parallel Maintenance/Development
• S3. Overlapping Releases
• S4. Docking Line
• S5. Staged Integration Lines
• S6. Change Propagation Queues
• S7. Third Party Codeline
• S8. Inside/Outside Lines