When you've got a lot of people working in a codebase, there is often more than one person working in the same area. When this happens, weather you like it or not you're in a merge race. First person to merge to master wins, and you have to resolve that conflict.
This is a script that checks branches that have happened since you branched, and tells you if any of them are in conflict with yours.
Requires ruby.
gem install git-race
Navigate to the repository that you're working in, checkout the branch you're keen on...
cd $MY_REPO
git fetch --all
git checkout $MY_BRANCH
Now run this snazzy command...
git race
And you should get some output like...
Danger! Merge race in progress
* 4 files, 1315 line conflict with origin/admin_themes, last authored by Flappy Mc Flapjack <lumber@jack.co.nz>
* 1 files, 21 line conflict with origin/electron_hack, last authored by Base Master Cylinder <mr@basemaster.co.nz>