Hey, is the latest version of Fossil close enough to 2.18 that it can be used to learn Fossil concepts well? Or should I stick with the docs? I have experience with Git.

is the latest version of Fossil close enough to 2.18

Um, what? The latest release is 2.18.

If you're building from the trunk source code, it's pre-tagged as 2.19, so builds declare themselves as such, but 2.19 isn't formally released yet. Soon maybe, but not yet.

That means your question might be reinterpreted as, "Have they completely invalidated everything in the book over the last release's development span?" Answer? No.

I'm the one who approved your post, so you might be wondering why I delayed so many hours in answering. It's because I was hoping someone who'd read the book more recently than me would answer first. Since no one has, you might be stuck with my stale opinion: I read the book (and enjoyed it) back in its first edition, when it covered something like Fossil 1.29. I've never re-read it, and I haven't been involved in its later editions.

What I do know is that the current 3rd edition branch is supposed to be up to date with Fossil 2.$TEENS. How well they've managed that, though, I can't say.

Since they aren't running their own forum, and I don't see a lot of complaints about the current edition here, either no one's reading it, or no one's finding major problems. If the latter, and you become one of its new avid readers, complaints here are likely to result in fixes there.

learn Fossil concepts

Our quick start guide and the links therefrom — particularly the glossary — might suffice for that, given your prior DVCS experience.

I have experience with Git.

Add the Git to Fossil Translation Guide to your reading list.

I largely wrote it, so if you want to carp about its content, you now know who to target. :)

Since they aren't running their own forum, and I don't see a lot of complaints about the current edition here,

Sidebar: the question of whether the forum should be opened there came up when the book was re-opened (so to speak) by Torsten Berg and we opted to wait and see if the traffic would warrant it. We can definitely do so if folks want that, but the book-specific forum traffic so far has been negligible.

Thank you for the response!

Um, what? The latest release is 2.18.

Sorry! I intened to write "latest version of the Fossil book".