Talks
Speakers
Events
Topics
Sign in
Home
Talks
Speakers
Events
Topics
Leaderboard
Use
Analytics
Sign in
Suggest modification to this talk
Title
Description
Trunk based development is a scary practice to adopt for engineers used to git flow or github flow. But there is ample evidence to show that it leads to higher quality code and faster delivery. So why are so many resistant to pushing to master? In this talk, we'll go over why TBD can be scary, what challenges are involved in pushing for team and company adoption, and how to overcome those challenges
Date
Summarized using AI?
If this talk's summary was generated by AI, please check this box. A "Summarized using AI" badge will be displayed in the summary tab to indicate that the summary was generated using AI.
Show "Summarized using AI" badge on summary page
Summary
Markdown supported
In his talk at RubyConf 2022, Dylan Blakemore presents the concept of Trunk-Based Development (TBD), a methodology that, while intimidating for those used to traditional branching strategies like Git flow or GitHub flow, ultimately leads to improved code quality and faster delivery. Blakemore, a software engineering manager at Zappy, illustrates the need for change in development practices after observing declining delivery speed and low engineering morale in his team. He outlines key metrics from the State of DevOps Report, known as DORA metrics, which are crucial for measuring high-performing software teams: deployment frequency, change lead time, change failure rate, and mean recovery time. Blakemore explains TBD as a strategy that emphasizes smaller, more frequent commits to the master branch instead of lengthy feature branches, which can create complications and bugs from prolonged divergence. He identifies several benefits of TBD: - Faster delivery of value through smaller commits. - Enhanced team collaboration and collective ownership through pairing. - Simplified merge processes and reduced chances of conflicts. - Improved quality assurance by promoting testing practices in the production environment. To address the resistance to adopting TBD, Blakemore highlights three common excuses from teams: a perception that TBD is not applicable, an aversion to change, and the belief that it is too difficult. He counters these with examples from his own experience at Zappy, where the adoption of TBD practices has proved beneficial even for less experienced developers. Blakemore emphasizes the importance of 'roots' that support the practice of TBD, which includes good design, test-driven development (TDD), a robust CI/CD pipeline, and feature flags. Using RFCs (Requests for Comments) to document designs early in the process can mitigate issues during implementation. The talk concludes with the notion that adopting TBD is about instilling a development culture focused on best practices, flexibility, and trust, rather than seeing TBD as a goal itself. The ultimate takeaway is that trunk-based development is an indicator of good software engineering and team health, and organizations must nurture their development practices to thrive.
Suggest modifications
Cancel
