> branch from whatever branch is in prod
> implement change on that branch (in this case adding a column), test
> deploy to prod
I realize the build and deployment process may be more complex than that making it hard... but it doesn't have to be.
I agree that a microservice OR even another system (a collection of services) is a good solution if you need to make quick iterative changes, and you can't do so with your current system.
The benefits of working on a small repo include:
* Faster compilation (only depend on exactly the libraries you need)
* Faster testing (only need to run the tests which are actually relevant)
* Easier to understand for new joiners because there's just less code to sift through
* Faster startup (this is probably java specific - the classloader is slooow)
* No (okay, fewer) rebase wars
* Easy to see what's currently being worked on because the Pull Requests tab isn't 200 long
* Very fast rollbacks without needing to recompile a git revert (just hotswap the container for that particular service). You can't do this in a monolith without risking rolling back someone else's important changes.