Parallel development with Plastic SCM and Jira

Eons ago we published a short "how-to" explaining how to link Plastic with Jira.

Well, things are a lot easier now and instead of dealing with config files we've grown up to the "wizard age" (ok, if you're a hard-core hacker you can still play around with the files), and setting up the connection is... well, straightforward.



Setting up the connection is actually easier than explaining what's going on (which is not difficult either). Basically, what we do implement with "branch per task" is a workflow where:

every issue (or new feature) in Jira will be mapped to a branch in Plastic. This way the link is pretty easy to set up and you're free to embrace full parallel development using as many branches as you want. For a full explanation about why branch per task is better, just click here.

alternatively you can link every issue with a changeset (as you'd do with Subversion, for instance). We implemented this for the sake of completeness but honestly, I'd always go for pure branch per task.

There are many advantages on using branches instead of changesets to resolve issues:

better isolation

you're free to commit as often as you want because you're never touching other's branches

you keep the mainline pristine

it's fully compatible with distributed development

The branch explorer will decorate every branch with info coming directly from Jira, giving a "task oriented" view to the entire repository evolution.



Enough for an introduction, let's jump on the video which will give you a very quick overview of how it looks like (it's recorded in 1024x768 so better if you jump to full screen):