Why not commit unresolved changes?

Posted by Explosion Pills on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Explosion Pills
Published on 2012-10-10T13:34:35Z Indexed on 2012/10/10 15:54 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 237

Filed under:
|
|

In a traditional VCS, I can understand why you would not commit unresolved files because you could break the build. However, I don't understand why you shouldn't commit unresolved files in a DVCS (some of them will actually prevent you from committing the files).

Instead, I think that your repository should be locked from pushing and pulling, but not committing.

Being able to commit during the merging process has several advantages (as I see it):

  • The actual merge changes are in history.
  • If the merge was very large, you could make periodic commits.
  • If you made a mistake, it would be much easier to roll back (without having to redo the entire merge).
  • The files could remain flagged as unresolved until they were marked as resolved. This would prevent pushing/pulling.

You could also potentially have a set of changesets act as the merge instead of just a single one. This would allow you to still use tools such as git rerere.

So why is committing with unresolved files frowned upon/prevented? Is there any reason other than tradition?

© Programmers or respective owner

Related posts about version-control

Related posts about git