git-dit icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
git-dit copied to clipboard

Collaboration with git-bug?

Open hoijui opened this issue 5 years ago • 3 comments

I was wondering, whether that is an option, or how you'd think about that. I would imagine, using the same storage model, or at least have a bridge (importer & exporter) from one format to the other would be cool.

Distributed bug trackers are not a simple concept, and are not widely in peoples scope for tools to actually use in practice. Widening market-share by combining efforts, or at least combining the potential user-base should benefit both(/all) projects. Not to mention the sharing of brilliant minds focused on the same topics.

this issue might be a good point for initiating contact, if it does not exist yet.

... or do you see fundamental incompatibilities in the ideas behind the two projects?

hoijui avatar Oct 16 '19 18:10 hoijui

I would imagine, using the same storage model, or at least have a bridge (importer & exporter) from one format to the other would be cool.

It has been a while that I had a look at that project. IIRC and things didn't change dramatically, the data model itself is indeed completely incompatible. While git-dit is modelled after mailing lists, git-bug is essentially based on a file-based data storage of issues which are designed to be easily diffable and mergable (using a custom tool). In git-dit you alter a single knob of an issue while in git-bug you commit a full representation of an issue's metadata (incorporating a change). Both models have their pros and cons. But it is a rather hard choice what model to choose.

An import/export functionality could be drafted. But a seamless interaction between both systems is probably not possible.

That being said, there are opportunities for collaboration. For example, handling of an issue's state (e.g. "open"/"closed") and other metadata may benefit from a common ground. And be it for the user-experience alone. One of my neglected and dormant projects called issue-state was intended as possible base. Authentication and/or exchange of issue data between different forks is also a problem which (probably) all distributed issue trackers based on git face. A solution for one issue-tracker would probably also work for other issue-trackers.

this issue might be a good point for initiating contact, if it does not exist yet.

Well, I don't think that git-bug will completely redesign their storage model. That would not make much sense. I do have to say, however, that git-dit's data model was chosen partly to avoid the entire collision-avoidance mess the issue talks about. So... git-dit simply doesn't have that particular issue :smile: (we have a bunch of other issues, instead)

neithernut avatar Oct 17 '19 17:10 neithernut

sorry for the late answer, I wanted to have a free head to answer...

In git-dit you alter a single knob of an issue while in git-bug you commit a full representation of an issue's metadata (incorporating a change).

I am not sure I understood this correctly, but if I did, I think.. the git-bug model works differently now. There are commits altering a bug, which consists of packs of "Operation"s, each modifying a part of the bug, for example the title, the message, the due-date, ... and there is a different type of Operation for each modification, for example CREATE, MODIFY_DATE, ADD_COMMENT, MODIFY_COMMENT,... so .. I would guess it is more similar then, no?

hoijui avatar Oct 28 '19 15:10 hoijui

I am not sure I understood this correctly, but if I did, I think.. the git-bug model works differently now.

Well, I may also just have mixed up git-bug's data-model with the data model of another distributed issue tracker in the end (there are quite a few, some also called "git-bug").

The data-model you described is indeed more similar to that of git-dit. However, I do have to have a closer look at git-bug again in order to assess whether direct interaction is feasible or not.

neithernut avatar Oct 29 '19 08:10 neithernut