So you created an awesome pull request with a couple of features, but the evil(?) maintainer (could be me) just denied it and said you shouldn’t make pull requests from master? Then you’ve come to the right place to learn what went wrong and how to fix it.

Current (Incorrect) State

Looking at the history of your repository, it probably looks something like the image to the right. There’s a base commit and then you’ve added one commit for each of the features to it. And everything is done on the branch master.

The image was created with Git Extensions. Although I prefer using the command line when working with git, having a tool that can display the branches and commits graphically is indispensible to understand what’s happening.

Doing everytying on master as shown in the image is wrong for a couple of reasons that might not be obvious when first starting working with git.

• Every single feature should be created in its own branch. Branches are so lightweight in git that it’s okay to branch all the time.
• Submitting a pull request from your own master branch is a recipe for disaster, as it effectively prevents you from getting the latest code from the upstream repository (more on that later).

Unfortunately it’s easy to end up in this situation with git. Fortunately, it’s also quite easy to fix.

• Continue Reading →