PUBLIC MARKS with tags git & flow

GitFlow is probably the most popular Git branching model in use today. It seems to be everywhere. It certainly is everywhere for me personally - practically every project at my current job uses it, and often it's the clients themselves who have chosen it. I remember reading the original GitFlow article back when it first came out. I was deeply unimpressed - I thought it was a weird, over-engineered solution to a non-existent problem. I couldn't see a single benefit of using such a heavy approach. I quickly dismissed the article and continued to use Git the way I always did (I'll describe that way later in the article). Now, after having some hands-on experience with GitFlow, and based on my observations of others using (or, should I say more precisely, trying to use) it, that initial, intuitive dislike has grown into a well-founded, experienced distaste. In this article I want to explain precisely the reasons for that distaste, and present an alternative way of branching which is superior, at least in my opinion, to GitFlow in every way.

Version management with git makes branching and merging much easier than older versioning systems such as SVN. This allows a wide variety of branching strategies and workflows. Almost all of these are an improvement over the methods used before git. But many organizations end up with a workflow that is not clearly defined, overly complex or not integrated with issue tracking systems. Therefore we propose the GitLab flow as clearly defined set of best practices. It combines feature driven development and feature branches with issue tracking.