I’ve tried Fossil a number of times, but several oddly-rigid aspects always manage to turn me off. Take, for example, the integrated bug tracker, which is novel and a big draw for me. Say I write up a bug and then notice an error in the description… I can’t edit it! I can merely append more comments, which also can't be edited or removed. The recommendation I found was that I should close (there's no delete!) the bug and create a new one. What’s the point of that level of immutability? I can tolerate the purity for the source code (e.g., the whole no rebase position they've taken), but for project metadata, I need way more freedom.
It’s a cool app that I’d love to use, but there are a few showstopper oddities.
You can't edit descriptions!? I was curious about Fossil but I just noped right out.
Can you share the other issues you encountered? I need to write some notes to my future self for when I stumble upon Fossil again.
Edit:
I couldn't help it and gave Fossil a try just to see what the editing was like. I changed my view.
The "description" you enter when opening a ticket seems to be just an initial comment. So when you edit the ticket, you are able to add new comments, but not edit existing ones like the initial description.
This isn't bad, it's just a different workflow with different tradeoffs. Personally, I'm used to tickets where I can add comments and also update a main Description with the current state of things. That's not how Fossil's ticketing system works though and it's intentional.
I think it would be great for Fossil to have editable comments that are somehow versioned, plus an independent Description field that can be edited and versioned like other fields, but it doesn't. And I don't think they should have to go and add a large amount of complexity to do the versioning of a description field + comments like you (and I) would prefer just because.
So I think you are criticizing the issue (immutable, append-only comments) with partial understanding about how it works and how it compares to a completely different feature you are familiar with in other ticket systems (mutable/versioned description, plus mutable/versioned appendable comments). I do think Fossil has room to improve in this area, however.
Sure, but parts of the ticket are editable. I can change the title and various fields, and everything gets versioned. But they've elected to not provide an editable description field, and instead, all clarification must be in append-only, immutable comments. This seems like an arbitrary limitation.
Well, files in the project can be synchronized across spacetime without conflicts but you can presumably edit their contents so this is a conscious design decision, not a technical one
Comments
I’ve tried Fossil a number of times, but several oddly-rigid aspects always manage to turn me off. Take, for example, the integrated bug tracker, which is novel and a big draw for me. Say I write up a bug and then notice an error in the description… I can’t edit it! I can merely append more comments, which also can't be edited or removed. The recommendation I found was that I should close (there's no delete!) the bug and create a new one. What’s the point of that level of immutability? I can tolerate the purity for the source code (e.g., the whole no rebase position they've taken), but for project metadata, I need way more freedom.
It’s a cool app that I’d love to use, but there are a few showstopper oddities.
You can't edit descriptions!? I was curious about Fossil but I just noped right out.
Can you share the other issues you encountered? I need to write some notes to my future self for when I stumble upon Fossil again.
Edit:
I couldn't help it and gave Fossil a try just to see what the editing was like. I changed my view.
The "description" you enter when opening a ticket seems to be just an initial comment. So when you edit the ticket, you are able to add new comments, but not edit existing ones like the initial description.
This isn't bad, it's just a different workflow with different tradeoffs. Personally, I'm used to tickets where I can add comments and also update a main Description with the current state of things. That's not how Fossil's ticketing system works though and it's intentional.
I think it would be great for Fossil to have editable comments that are somehow versioned, plus an independent Description field that can be edited and versioned like other fields, but it doesn't. And I don't think they should have to go and add a large amount of complexity to do the versioning of a description field + comments like you (and I) would prefer just because.
So I think you are criticizing the issue (immutable, append-only comments) with partial understanding about how it works and how it compares to a completely different feature you are familiar with in other ticket systems (mutable/versioned description, plus mutable/versioned appendable comments). I do think Fossil has room to improve in this area, however.
That all data even the bug tracker can be synchronized across spacetime without conflicts.
Sure, but parts of the ticket are editable. I can change the title and various fields, and everything gets versioned. But they've elected to not provide an editable description field, and instead, all clarification must be in append-only, immutable comments. This seems like an arbitrary limitation.
Well, files in the project can be synchronized across spacetime without conflicts but you can presumably edit their contents so this is a conscious design decision, not a technical one