What term describes the process of creating a new line of development that diverges from the main codebase in a version control system?

What term describes the process of creating a new line of development that diverges from the main codebase in a version control system?

• A. Merging
• B. Branching
• C. Committing
• D. Forking

Answer: (B)

Branching is the act of creating a new line of development that diverges from the main codebase. It lets you work on features, experiments, or bug fixes in isolation without risking the stability of the main branch. You can switch to the branch, make changes, and commit them independently, then later merge those changes back into the main line when they’re ready. This separation is what makes parallel development clean and manageable.

Merging, on the other hand, is the process of bringing changes from one branch into another, typically integrating a completed feature back into the main line. Committing simply saves a set of changes to the repository. Forking creates a separate copy of the entire repository, often used when you want to develop independently in your own copy rather than within the same project’s branches.