How Can Git Help Manage Multiple Versions of a Module?

Just a thought: when you fix a bug, it results in a new revision, but old revisions remain unchanged and should not be used. Instead of having multiple versions of the same code, try to share common code across projects through libraries. This keeps things cleaner and more manageable.

Ideally, you shouldn't be maintaining multiple variants of the same module. Instead, design your module to accommodate various use cases directly. If you do find a bug in versioned software, you can use Git to cherry-pick the fix into other versions easily. If several developers are working on different branches, cherry-picking might be a common practice, although typically, you would apply the fix to the main branch first.

Back in the day, when software was sold as a product, we’d also maintain branches for all released versions. Fixes would be committed to the main branch and cherry-picked into the relevant branches if they were critical.

Git uses tags and branches to help mark specific software versions. When it comes to fixing issues across multiple versions, the process can vary from simply cherry-picking a fix from the main branch to manually applying fixes for each version. This approach can be less daunting if you have automated tests to help verify that your fixes are applied correctly.

A common workflow is to maintain a separate branch for each released version of your software. If a defect is found in all versions, you would usually follow these steps: 1) Fix it in the main branch, 2) Cherry-pick that fix to the relevant release branches, and 3) Repeat as necessary until every version is updated. Automating this process is possible, depending on your testing framework.