August 23rd, 2024

I prefer rebase over merge (and everything else)

The author prefers rebasing over merging in Git for its cleaner project history, easier debugging, simplified conflict resolution, and effective management of commits, ensuring only working commits remain in the main branch.

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I prefer rebase over merge (and everything else)

The article discusses the author's preference for using rebase over merge in Git for managing feature branches. The author argues that rebasing creates a cleaner, linear project history, making it easier to track changes and debug issues. This linearity simplifies the code review process, allowing reviewers to focus on relevant changes without the clutter of merge commits. Additionally, rebasing allows for a more straightforward conflict resolution process, as conflicts are handled one commit at a time, providing better context. The author also highlights the benefits of interactive rebasing, which enables users to edit, reorder, or remove commits, thus maintaining a clean commit history. This is particularly useful for eliminating problematic commits from the main branch without leaving a trace, unlike merging, which can lead to repeated conflicts and a more complicated history. The author emphasizes that the main branch should only contain working commits, advocating for the removal of any that introduce bugs. Overall, the preference for rebasing is framed as a method to enhance project clarity and maintainability.

- The author prefers rebasing for its ability to create a linear and cleaner project history.

- Rebasing simplifies debugging and code reviews by reducing clutter from merge commits.

- Conflict resolution during rebasing is more manageable due to its step-by-step approach.

- Interactive rebasing allows for editing and reordering commits, enhancing commit history management.

- The main branch should only contain working commits, and rebasing can help eliminate problematic ones effectively.

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By @kapad - 6 months
"Eventually you’ll discover the Easter egg in Git: all meaningful operations can be expressed in terms of the rebase command. Once you figure that out it all makes sense." - Linus Torvalds

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21891091/what-does-this-...