Comment by icefox | Hacker News Reader

Comment by icefox | Hacker News Reader

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So I honestly don't get it. Is this a poor mans bug tracker? A possible re-invention of a bug tracker? (something wacky and different version of a bug tracker to see if it sticks?)

I have seen people mention project management a bunch, but the view really isn't about viewing what people are doing. In fact items that don't have people assigned to them still show up. The 10 foot view isn't even that good as they all squares and text. At a glance you can not tell what changed recently, what is late etc.

I had to really grimace when it showed the internal team that was using it and one of the stacks was "bugs" and it had the most number of items and was scrollable. ugg Does that scale to thousands of open bugs (or how about just 50)?

So either this is for all of those people who have never discovered the overview page of their bug tracker or maybe it is trying an experiment to see if the process of creating a bug tracker for a project is too difficult and here you just click "new project" and blam done and later on you export it to a real bug tracker... Maybe this is all just tricking users into using a bug tracker without them knowing?

Anyone get the same feeling?

In my view this looks like a great tool for agile workflow. A replacement for the board with sticky notes.

regarding the scale ... most if not all bug-trackers become a junk yard of bug reports. thousands of them. most never get fixed. lots never get looked at. This tool lets you store things that you are going to do in the near future. And the rest... lets deal with it when we get there. I think if you can't remember it a month from now, it probably not important.

In any real project you can never deal with all the bugs and reports. so you usually deal with the most serious ones and the ones that get reported most often. the important ones go on todo right away, and the often reported ones do not need another place for them. people will keep reporting until you deal ;)

so this tool is effectively lets you plan your activities in the short and medium term. once you get to the 'next year' you will have other priorities and new things to do. there is no need to plan it now.

Im definitely going to try it. Currently we mostly work with Pivotal Tracker and also trying out Trajectory from Thoughtbot. It looks like Trello might be a decent contender in the space.

In looking at it, it looks much more generic than Pivotal Tracker (which I'm a current heavy user of and absolutely adore).

Pivotal Tracker is very focused on being an agile workflow tool. You enter a card, estimate it, start it, deliver it, and then it gets accepted or rejected. This is great for agile projects. Where it falls down is if you want to use it for non-development efforts, like say a marketing project, or building a new data center. Projects where that workflow doesn't really apply.

In my opinion, this is where Trello seems like it could shine. It's one tool that everyone can use to manage their work.

I don't see myself leaving Pivotal Tracker any time soon, but I will definitely keep an eye on Trello.

Well, to fuel your fire, Fog Creek also happens to make a bug tracker, http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/

I am also a bit surprised we are seeing a kanban tool from fogcreek. At work we have used fogbugz + the kanban plugin. Although the kanban plugin does not allow for the same level of fanciness when editing notes, the fact that it is integrated with fogbugz makes it more attractive. I'll take a look at Trello, I suspect the UI may be nicer, especially when accessed from mobile devices.

to me it looks like just a simpler version of Fogbugz. I am guessing on the back end they re-used a lot of code. Fogbugz offers more features, but this is more accessible, easier to use, and more basic so it can be used in many different ways.. I think it will put FogCreek in front of more developers and managers and get them into more spaces like GTD (rememberthemilk.com) areas...

It is a simpler version of Pivotal Tracker.

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