Using GitHub issues

Hi,

I've noticed that the WinSCP project is already on GitHub and, out of my curiosity, I was wondering why not using also the issues to track bugs and feature requests.

In my opinion, that would be much simpler both on the user and developers side. But, as I said, it's a kind of mix of a curiosity and suggestion :).

Regards,
Adriano C.

We have our own tracker for decades. And it just works :)

Hi Martin,

No doubts but outside, for users like me, there is only a PhpBB forum and not any tracked which is not ideal.

If you are already actively using GIT in your code tracking workflow, I think it would be worth give it a try.

Anyway, thank you for asking my question.

Regards,
Adriano C.

But GitHub issue tracker is basically just a forum. We do not need yet another forum. We manage our tracker ourselves based on what our users post on the forum.

Hi Martin,

Having embraced the same journey I was suggesting here myself years ago, the following are the key aspects I think you might consider:

• The GitHub (or GitLab) issue tracker is much more powerful, with better syntax highlighting and arguably a better text formatting language (the Markdown standard, which I think is better suited for developers than the basic BB code).
  
• The conversations (issues) are intimately connected to the code implementation. Commits are visible in related issues and merge requests.
  
• GitHub will automatically close the associated issue for you once a feature/bug implementation is completed and merged via a Pull Request. So, all people interested in a feature/bugfix will be automatically notified.
  
• Issues and implementations are also connected with releases. This makes it easier for users to realise that, for example, even though a feature has been implemented, it is not yet available because associated with a milestone which has not yet been released. Each issue is assigned to a release milestone.
  
• Actual releases (and binary) can be hosted in the same place.
  
• It would make it much easier for someone to contribute to implementation or fix an existing partial one.
  
• You might consider improving the cooperation with other developers by configuring automatic CI/CD pipelines for unit testing, coverage and other general QA.
  
• Even documentation improvement might be discussed, hosted and modified in the same place.
  

Changing an established and working workflow is always costly and somehow painful. However, not trying new ones that might dramatically improve the overall experience is a significant opportunity loss.

Thanks for the list. I'm aware of all this. On the other hand, we are happy with not relying on external services. Those come and go. WinSCP is here for over 20 years. We have seen rise and fall of SourceForge. And we might a well see the fall of GitHub :)

Hi Martin,

No doubt you were already aware of them.

WinSCP is here for over 20 years. We have seen rise and fall of SourceForge. And we might a well see the fall of GitHub :)

True. On the other hand, it's also true that it's far easy to migrate away, just in case, while working better for the time being ;).

Regards,
Adriano C.