Tony Wolski

Build scripts - don't modify my files!

2014-08-06

One of my pet hates when it comes to development is a build script or an IDE that modifies project/config files so that the project looks like it’s modified in the IDE.

Modified

When I check out a project from source control, whether it be Subversion, Git, Mercurial… whatever, until I physically open and edit a (not ignored) file in that project, I only want to see that little yellow cylinder looking thing.

Unchanged

So here’s a few Don’ts to follow:

And some Dos:

There’s a good answer over on stackoverflow which discusses this topic which is definitely worth a read.


Your thoughts? I'd love to hear them. Please get in contact.