Are "annotations" warranted in presence of "description"?

[savchenko]

Inspired by https://github.com/djmitche/taskchampion/issues/89.

Given that task already has properties of "name", "tag" and "description", does it make much sense to add "annotation"? Wouldn't it just confuse newcomers?

[djmitche]

Note that a task doesn't have a name - just a one-line description. And multiple tags :)

Annotations are useful in that they can add context to a task after it is created, and they merge nicely when added in multiple places at once.

One use-case is to keep a list, e.g.,

task add make a grocery order
task 17 annotate carrots
task 17 annotate chicken
task 17 annotate milk

Another use-case is for recording updates to an ongoing task; for example:

task add find a fence contractor
...
task 82 annotate called jimmies fences, left message
task 82 annotate called fences r us, left message
task 82 wait:2d
...
task 82 annotate jimmies called back, will do estimate tomorrow
...

If we kept this information in the description, then the description would get pretty long! It also wouldn't merge very nicely (last edit wins).