OT: Distributed bug tracking?

[Dmitriy Morozov]

Hi, Peter,

> > It sounds like a good idea to consider storing comments in separate files.
>
> Using a hash over the text as the name to avoid collisions?

Actually, just picking a random filename should avoid collisions all
the same. (That's how Artemis currently picks Message-Ids for
comments.)

> > The next thing I'll implement (when I have time again is ability to
> > attach files to comments and the issues themselves).
>
> From the previous discussion, I gathered people would be using this to
> basically replace internal TODO lists. I don't think attachments (and
> comments, for that matter) will be very important then. After all, do
> you guys really envision a discussion taking place via comment
> commits? Or would they get added after the fact, copy/pasting from IRC
> or email? That, then, would require a ui that plays well with
> copy/paste.

Automating commits from email (or just additions without commits in
case spam is an issue) is a fairly trivial thing right now (via, say,
a procmail rule or something like that) since an issue file is just an
mbox. So it's quite simple to have something like
yourname+yourproject at yourdomain to be a place for users to send bug
reports, which are automatically added to a repository (from which
they can be selectively pulled by a developer). Then a proper handling
of Cc field could be added, and the system could automatically notify
all the people involved of updates on an issue. In other words, a
discussion taking place over email is very doable right now (I have no
idea if there is interest in that, but if there is, let me know, I can
add the missing functionality.) Even single-user TODO lists can
benefit from attachments and comments (attachments for obvious
reasons, and comments because I occasionally have conversations with
myself ;-)).

> I guess I'm still failing to see how this is going to be valuable in
> practice. Can anyone enlighten me beyond the basic TODO list case?

Well, specifics of current design aside, there is no conceptual reason
why this couldn't  be integrated with hgweb. In which case, the
developer gets his issue tracker that is distributed, much like his
version control. The user could browse/search/read existing bugs
online, and could submit them either by email (using what I describe
in the previous paragraph), or online (if integration with hgweb is
thorough enough).

Even if you don't consider the case of automating comment submission,
I think the case where Mercurial is used by a single (or maybe a
couple of) developers for a project for which they need to somehow
keep track of (read: organize nicely) the issues involved, and perhaps
save an occasional bug report from an occasional user, is common
enough to where it explains the interest that this thread has raised.

Best,
Dmitriy