David Heffernan

I don't think it should be either or, why can't we have both? Instead if often seems that we have neither.

Clearly there is a problem but you'd need to provide information on what the data is and precisely how you are processing it before you can get specific help. One thing I can probably say with confidence is that you are falling into the well know Delphi memory stream anti pattern.

Why do you want Embarcadero C++? What in particular are you looking for that is specific to Embarcadero tools rather than standard C++?

I bet Peter hasn't even written to Embarcadero!!

As I demonstrated in my previous comment what you are looking for is impossible so clearly you must have misremembered.

There's no other way. The interface and implementation sections of a unit must be in a single translation unit and the only way to have multiple files in a single translation unit is with include files.

Previous comments from Andy

I have the feeling that Andy is quite happy not to have to keep chasing updates.....

Even this can happen if the developer is splitting time between two different projects.

Merge conflicts happen whether or not the team is using branches or all developing on a single branch. If there are never any conflicts then it doesn't make much difference if you use branches or not. If there are conflicts then they can be a massive problem on long lived branches. But if there are no branches then they are also a massive problem. Often developments are in flux. Devs try something. Realise it was the wrong idea. Try something else, and so on. If this happens without branches then everyone has to deal with the conflicts over and over again. That's more work. Well managed branches make this easier. There never are magic bullet solutions for tough problems like this. You have to keep an open mind and do what works best for their teams.

This is a good point. Perhaps some settings suit a process with no branches. But This can't be right. You can't ever "prove" such a statement. There's never going to be a one size fits all approach. We all have to do what works for us, and be prepared to entertain new ideas and approaches.

Branch management requires skill but it's perfectly possible. You just need to know how to do it.

It's not so much how many branches. It's how long they live and how regularly changes from the develop branch get pulled into them. The other issue that can bite is when you have multiple branches working on the same area of code, for obvious reasons. But I don't think you should be afraid of having many feature branches so long as they are managed properly.

Delphi IDE integration for vcs isn't very good. I'd use another tool for that.

That's right. Which is essentially what the example in my comment was meant to demonstrate.

This question is basically like asking why TButton(ListBox) fails when ListBox is a TListBox. That's directly analagous to your cast.

I don't think you understand what we are saying. On a feature branch you develop a new feature that hasn't yet been released. So if there is a bug in code that has been released it doesn't clash with your new feature, because the feature is new. So the scenario you describe basically doesn't arise. You asked for advice, and we all have experience of this. You don't. Which is why you asked. Just a suggestion. Perhaps our experience means something? Or perhaps I don't understand how you develop. Perhaps you really do rewrite your entire code base regularly.

I don't think so. If the bug is in the code for the new feature then you don't need to push it to the release branch because this new feature hasn't been released. Of course you will sometimes be working on a feature that involves modifying existing code, and those modifications clash with a bug fix for released code. But if there is a clash then of course you have to fix it on the main dev branch, and then work out how to push that to any release/feature branches resolving conflicts. No workflow can avoid that. I'm sure other people can chip in, but in my experience, the vast majority of bug fixes can be resolved and then pushed to release branches without conflicts needing to be resolved.

Not really, the vcs does the work. You fix the bug once and then push it onto whichever branches also need the fix. Irrespective of the workflow you are going to do the fix once, commit it, and then use the vcs to propagate that fix to wherever you choose.

These tools are really useful, but they aren't a substitute for understanding the workflow.

I don't really understand how tools can support specific workflows. Aren't workflows just conventions that you put on top of the vcs? I mean, I'm sure that I can do git flow, gitlab flow, github flow etc. with any tool.

Fix it in development branch, and then merge on to feature branch and release branch,

Read up on git submodules properly, and read about the potential pitfalls. Just like svn externals they sound compelling but you can easily get into a bind with them.

This works fine. The key point is to keep separate branches for development and releases.

I don't think it matters how many developers there are. That doesn't change anything. Even with one developer you still need to maintain separate branches for current development and historical maintained releases. I work exactly the same way on my solo projects as I do on my collab projects. I strongly recommend reading up on this subject, you'll get a much better idea than this sort of threaded discussion. Here is a great place to come ask questions once you've read up the subject but I wouldn't recommend starting like this.