Merge errors in GitHub when collaborating on a project

[Jaqster]

Reported by an Educator -
I created a group assignment in GitHub Classroom using MakeCode Arcade. Students created teams today and were trying to practice pushing & pulling changes.
However, when one group member pushed, they got merge errors, and then it wouldn’t let them go back to their blocks, saying there were issues with the code. Some were able to get to Javascript, but then it wouldn’t convert the code into blocks. Some couldn’t get back to their code at all. This happened with several groups.

Here is an example repo where students are not able to merge their PR's https://github.com/RoznaiCSP/u5-collaborative-coding-project-danielabi/pulls

[Jaqster]

May be related to microsoft/pxt-arcade#1908

[kroznai]

May be related to microsoft/pxt-arcade#1908

After reading that issue, it is 100% related.

How I want MakeCode/GitHub to work:

• students can work at the same time on the code - i.e. student1 works on function1, student2 works on making sprites or onstart or something
• then they can push their branches to GitHub and merge the changes

Having to pull your partner's changes before doing anything doesn't allow them to work at the same time, so only one computer can be coding at any point during class, so why use GitHub then instead of something like pair programming?

[kroznai]

My TEALS volunteer ( @B4-Bingo ) pointed out that a lot of the time the merge error has to do with the .png files that are created, so he's trying to write a script that ignores that file in the merge.

[abchatra]

@pelikhan fyi