Streamed Lines: Branching Patterns for Parallel Software Development

Abstract

Most software version control systems provide mechanisms for branching into multiple lines of development and merging source code from one development line into another. However, the techniques, policies and guidelines for using these mechanisms are often misapplied or not fully understood. This is unfortunate, since the use or misuse of branching and merging can make or break a parallel software development project. Streamed Lines is a pattern language for organizing related lines of development into appropriately diverging and converging streams of source code changes.