There are two ways to organize a project:
  • linear history
  • branched history: history with merge commits
Some people like merges, but they are ugly and stupid. Rebase instead and keep linear history.
Linear history:
5 master
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
1 first commit
Branched history:
7   master
|\
| \
6  \
|\  \
| |  |
3 4  5
| |  |
| /  /
|/  /
2  /
| /
1/  first commit
Here commits 6 and 7 are the so called "merge commits":
  • they have multiple parents:
    • 6 has parents 3 and 4
    • 7 has parents 5 and 6
  • they are useless and don't contain any real information
Which type of tree do you think will be easier to understand and maintain?
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You may disconnect now if you still like branched history.