Software bugs

Nicholas Fitzroy-Dale reviews several bug trackers, and has a list of their common features:

General-purpose features

• Searching and filtering
  • Full-text search
  • Field search
  • Saved searches
  • “Subscribable” searches – get search results emailed periodically or be notified if the search picks up new issues
• Custom fields. Ability to add new trackable fields to issues, search on them etc.
• Full issue tracking. Track issues from the first report to the resolution, including any emails sent back and forth.
• Attachments of images and code

Specialised features

• Import and export: Import bugs from email, from Excel, from Access or other databases; export to a structured text form (CSV, XML) or a database format.

He also discusses how people decide whether or not to use a given tracker:

Reasons given are

• Difficult to set up
• Difficult to change later (ie lack of export option)
• Strange or unfamiliar hardware / software requirements (eg must run on Windows NT, requires J2EE)

Popularity: 66% [?]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 at 3:23 am and is filed under Bug reporting systems.