Using a Git branch as a permanent method of segregating a portion of a code base. Good or bad?

Question

We have a product, called 'AFE'. That product has several OS specific versions (Linux, iOS, Windows, etc.). We are considering using permanent branches in BitBucket to segregate these platform specific portions of the master code. Reasoning is to make our Bamboo triggers (on commits) focus only on one platform, as opposed to them all.

Has anyone done something similar? Any issues you've encountered, or you can see being a problem with permanent branches? Any alternative suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Robert Watkins · Accepted Answer

There would be pros and cons. One pro is that you would be in a good position to manage platform-specific bugs in the common code. The con, however, is that you need to do a lot of merging between the branches to ensure the common code remains common.

An alternative would be to keep one branch, but use patterns to include or exclude particular files (probably folders) in the build.

For example, if you had a folder structure like this:
-- common
-- ios
-- linux
-- windows

You could use a pattern of

^((common)|(ios))/.*

to include the common and iOS folders.

(Inclusion and exclusion patterns can be defined in the 'Advanced Options' section of the repository configuration)