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Comment by dummyfunnytoo | Hacker News Reader

Life sucks sometimes but it doesn't matter whether you merge or rebase in the scenario you describe, you need to test the combined version of the code. You can't just assume it is still working and whoever comes second needs to shoulder that responsibility.

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> Life sucks sometimes but it doesn't matter whether you merge or rebase in the scenario you describe, you need to test the combined version of the code. You can't just assume it is still working and whoever comes second needs to shoulder that responsibility.

Sure you do. But you're missing the fact that testing is in no way even remotely guaranteed to catch every error. If it did then projects that have tests would never have bugs, and that doesn't seem to even approximate the world we live in. (Why did I need to point this out though? Is this not obvious?)

Sorry for being a bit vague but I didn't mean to imply there were tests. I meant test in the sense of "do whatever you did to check correctness" in the first place. You change the code, you should do that process again or at least some approximation of it. Automated tests make it pretty easy, manual testing makes it doable, stepping through with a debugger or dumping printing statements makes it painful and error prone.

Many codebases don't have tests at all, most have terrible tests, and under no circumstances do I think they magically prevent all bugs. But I do think obnoxious coders who assume they can just merge and move on without checking the correctness have a special place in hell.

> I meant test in the sense of "do whatever you did to check correctness" in the first place.

Sure. I already responded to this:

>> But you're missing the fact that testing is in no way even remotely guaranteed to catch every error.

Obviously you have to test the combination but the merging allows an easier rollback.

Easier? How so? If a rebase of a branch isn't successful you just reset back to the commit you rebased onto, and continue work on your old pre-rebase branch.

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