alt Hacker NewsAs someone who tried rerere and didn't see the point:
How? Usually I rebase the same branch multiple times onto different, but successive commits of the master branch. But after I solved a bunch of conflicts of the first rebase, I shouldn't have the same conflicts again in a second one, since the rebased branch contains the merged conflict. Rebasing again could only turn up new conflicts (with newer, other commits on the master branch).
How can I have the same conflict again for repeated rebases?
Replies
barbazoo • today at 3:54 PM
I know what you mean but doesn't that require squashing as well? If I have a branch with 5 commits, I think rerere helps me by only having to fix the conflict once, not potentially multiple times. I might be wrong here though.
The point is that some organizations have a chaotic development process consisting of numerous similar branches. Often there is a main trunk, and then branches that were made for particular product variants (like piece of hardware or whatever) and cut at a particular point in time, in order to isolate from the trunk.
What then happens is that when a bug is found that affects all branches, it must be cherry picked into all of them. If that cherry pick runs into conflicts, it is often the same conflicts, over and over again on each branch.
Of course, the fix is not to do that, but it's easier to say that than to get away from that kind of workflow once you are steeped in it up to the chin.