Why is the "source" version given so much importance in Perforce while merging (resolving conflicts to be verbose)?

Question

I don't think I even want to see it. Why do others find it so important ?

Isn't Base, Target enough for the "resolving conflicts" aka Merge tool window. What am I missing ? Are people really that bothered about the version before Base i.e. Source ?

Answer 1

It seems you have a fundamental misunderstanding about what each of the versions are. When you merge two branches, almost always you want to keep changes from both branches. Base is the latest common ancestor of the two branches. Base->Source shows what was changed in the branch you're merging from, and Base->Target shows what was changed in the branch you're merging to. To properly resolve a conflict, you need to know what was changed in each branch.