Search for ‘feature toggle’ in Google, check out the results. The simple fact is that branching using a revision control system still has its place, but its place is not controlling when you release a feature to your customers. Feature toggles create a distinction between deploying your feature & making that feature available for use. They also remove the requirement that to disable a feature, or to go back to ‘old behavior’ you have to rollback your deployment to an older version of code. There are lots of other benefits too, as well as some challenges.

Bottom line though, if you aren’t using these you need to really seriously consider whether they would be a benefit. If you control your software release & you operate a multi-tenant system, and you want to increase the amount of control you have around the features you release, you need to be using these.

Here are some related blog posts:

http://code.flickr.com/blog/2009/12/02/flipping-out/

http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/05/20/quantum-of-deployment/

http://www.rallydev.com/engblog/2011/12/09/the-awesomeness-of-feature-toggles/

http://www.rallydev.com/engblog/2011/12/12/the-best-part-of-feature-toggles-removing-them/

http://www.rallydev.com/engblog/2011/12/14/testing-feature-toggled-code/

http://www.rallydev.com/engblog/2011/12/20/feature-toggles-branching-in-code/