Introducing feature branches ahead of github pages episode

[elopatin-uc3]

One of the critical practices that enables collaboration on a project in git is feature branching. At this time, branching is first mentioned in the Github Page episode, but is not prefaced by an introduction or conceptual explanation.

It's likely to be helpful if a visual reference to a feature branch, the purpose behind creating one, and the steps to create a branch off of master or develop are introduced ahead of the Pages episode. Creating a standalone episode about branching, before diving into Pages, could be considered as well.

An example feature branch diagram (using master, rather than develop):

Although discussing something like gitflow is too heavyweight, familiarizing learners with creating and merging simple feature branches will enable them to work on a small team concurrently without stepping on each other's toes.

[dcmcand]

I agree this is definitely needed. Branching is core to using git according to best practices and should be taught. We should work this in with the lesson restructure we are working on.

[emcaulay]

I just wanted to comment here and let you know that I have become a new maintainer on this lesson, and I am addressing high priority issues first.

I hope to return to this issue in October or November 2021. It seems worth addressing!

Thank you to all contributors for raising it and getting it started.

[doingarchives]

Here is perhaps our first agile story point - we should be mindful that librarianship, archives, records management and museums are all places where our learners might have context and a sense of belonging - let's work to translate this software functionality to an example that is teachable and corrects for some of the bias and discontinuity observed in the course.