Lecture 44

MCS 275 Spring 2024
Emily Dumas

Lecture 44: git branches

Reminders and announcements:

Project 4 due 11:59pm today
As announced previously, I do not have office hours this afternoon
Future blackboard announcements:
- When project grading done
- When course grades submitted
- When course material archive page ready

We really talked about collaboration, and the possibility of a failed git push.

Resolve the failed push.

Work on the game and talk about git branches.

You can have multiple lines of development underway at once, each with their own name and history. You can switch between them at will.

A repo starts with one branch called main.

Each branch is just a pointer to its latest commit.

Branches are local by default but can also be shared.

git checkout -b my_branch_name – Create new branch
git checkout my_branch_name – Switch to existing branch
git checkout main – Switch to the main branch
git branch -d my_branch_name – Delete a branch
git commit – commit staged stuff to active branch
git push origin my_branch_name – push a branch to remote (default is to keep them local)

Often projects keep main clean (e.g. working!), and do all work on changes in branches.

One branch per feature (or task) is common.

This way, features can be worked on in parallel.

Branches "end" in two ways:

To merge alpha into beta, ending alpha:

The merge is a commit to beta.