Should we adapt the course material to include GitHub's sub-issues feature?

[TinyMarsh]

Potentially a non-issue, and I'm leaning towards "no", but...

We currently cover task lists in issues as a way to break down work into manageable chunks. However, with the addition of sub-issues in GitHub, I’m wondering if we should consider updating our course material to reflect this feature.

A few points to consider:

• Sub-issues could be a more robust way to manage complex tasks compared to just task lists.
• Some participants might already encounter sub-issues in their research or collaboration workflows.
• Adding this to the course could extend the time we spend on the "Using GitHub Issues" episode, so we'd need to evaluate its relevance and fit within the overall course.
• Creating sub-issues requires triage-level permissions or higher in a repository, which might limit their applicability for some participants.

Thoughts?

[dc2917]

I don't think it would be too much effort (in terms of course delivery) to explain the use of hierarchical issues, i.e. (parent) issues with sub-issues, which can themselves have sub-issues etc., and that the relationship between issues is much harder to track using task lists alone.

I know when I deliver the course I try and frame it in terms of using GitHub for project management, so once I've gone to the effort of the preamble, i.e. explaining the different project management features that GitHub provides, an extra minute or so explaining the advantages of sub-issues vs task lists isn't much more time.

I think in terms of actually getting them to create issues with sub-issues (and potentially giving those sub-issues) in order to realise the advantage over task lists, I'm not sure it would be worth it, since it's fairly intuitive and could probably just be explained or briefly demonstrated, rather than getting them to do an exercise.