> q: What do you use for source control? a: We use $NAME but we forbid branching because merging is too hard.

Where I used to work, and the first place I wrote software full-time, we were not allowed to commit code to our system (Synergy) until after our code review. I ended up creating a parallel SVN repository so I could do incremental check-ins.

Don't get me started in merging...

I don't think we are supposed to either, but it's never been an issue for our company because there's always shelvesets with TFS, so you can shelve your work at different stages and retrieve it later.

If you're using a DVCS like git, though, that seems silly.

Sadly, not surprising.

This is the state of most of the industry.

Mostly, only companies with cushy government contracts with unlimited time and expense accounts on their hands (think defense) don't want to fire their customers.

Unlimited time-and-materials (T&M) contracts are a rare beast. There is almost always a cap that cannot be exceeded without a renegotiation

As for not wanting to fire the customers, upper management may not want to fire them, but those of us actually doing the work sure did. We hoped they would take their so-called "experts" with them.