1. Ben Shepherd VELA/CLARA Software Development Meeting 10 May 2017
“Using Git better”
Ben Shepherd
VELA/CLARA Software Development Meeting
10 May 2017

2. Standard Git workflow Clone repository “shiny_widget”
A repository is usually used to organize a single project.
Clone repository “shiny_widget”
Write code for “cool_feature_1”
Commit your code
Has anyone else committed to the same code in the meantime?
No – go ahead
Yes – need to resolve differences
Start thinking about “cool_feature_2”
Bask in the admiration of your colleagues

3. Branches So far, we’ve been working on the master branch only
This is fine, but we may want a different way of working as we move into the machine commissioning stage
Keep the master branch for stable, reviewed code
Develop new apps/widgets/features in their own branches

4. Commit messages Good Bad
“Each commit is considered a separate unit of change. This lets you roll back changes if a bug is found, or if you decide to head in a different direction.”
So accurate descriptions are important!
Best practice: add [app_name] at the start of the message
Good
[parasol] Dropdown to switch between guns
ScopeWriter added
Fixed network logging
Bad
Daily Tweeks
blah
Try again?
friday night push

5. Issues
As we go from development to deployment, people will start using the software we’ve written
We should encourage issues to be logged if something goes wrong
(like fault reports, but just for software)
Pull requests can be linked to issues (“Closes #32”)
We can make a standard template for an issue log