Poll: Do you use a case/bug/feature tracking software? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Do you use a case/bug/feature tracking software?

10 pointskashif31 comments

We don't like the various bug tracking software we have used. Bug tracking with them is a chore. So, we are making some software which will track bugs/features/inquiries with MINIMUM effort. We aren't certain if a lot of developers use such software. We need your help to determine if there is a viable market for such a product.

So, do you use a case/bug/feature tracking software?

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I use redmine for my current projects and love it. Feature wise, it's about the same with other similar products, but the UI is beautiful and highly usable. Very good bug, issue and source control integration.

We use Redmine as well. It's fairly easy to install and run (especially if you are familiar with ruby/rails). The source control integration is great (putting 'closes #123' in a commit message will change the state of the actual issue).

What I like about it the most is its level of verbosity for issues. It asks just the right amount of information, and no more.

A good example of redmine is the official Ruby language project: http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/

I've used Trac and Fogbugz. My general feeling is 'too many fields to fill out'.

That being said, for anything more extensive than weekend hacks you _need_ bug tracking software or else things slip through the cracks. Developers who don't use bug tracking software rank right up there with developers who don't use version control in terms of stupidity.

On that note, I've been working on my first major project with another person (first time with a cofounder, it's weird but good). Version control and bug tracking feel entirely different when there's more than one person using the tool. There might be some sort of market for a 'just me' bug tracker that can migrate when the project grows beyond it's scope.

For a SaaS tool maybe a free "lite" version for one user, and paid plans that unlock additional features for two or more users.

Does anybody do that now? I see Lighthouse allows 3 projects and 10 members free; I don't know if they hide any application functionality.

We've been using Pivotal Tracker for about a year on our nights-and-weekends genealogy research webapp. It's intuitive -- even fun -- to use, costs nothing, and takes almost no time to administer. For user-sourced feature requests, bugs, and support responses we're currently quite pleased with GetSatisfaction. So far, we find we can migrate issues between the two without much difficulty.

We have 4 developers sitting in a room with a giant white board. When someone discovers a bug, or one is reported to us, we write a few words or a sentence up on the board; enough so that we'll be reminded what its about. When a developer decides to fix one of the bugs, they stick their initials next to it and check it off when completed, which signals to someone else that it needs to be tested and erased.

The goals of our bug tracker are to get bugs fixed and tested quickly, with the main goal of having no known bugs in the system. Specifically, we realized that most tracking systems are optimized for bug archival, whereas we wanted a system which is optimized for getting the bugs fixed, given our environment.

I've found that I have a very strong preference for an empty bug-tracking whiteboard, and the more items on it, the more I feel compelled to fix bugs rather than work on other things. It's great for communication, because you can just go talk about the item on the board. Even the process of marking something off on the board makes everyone else peripherally aware that something changed, so nobody has to check whether there's something for them to fix/test - they know. Often bugs are fixed and tested within the same day they're discovered. If something stays on the board for a while it's obvious to everyone that there's a more serious issue that we need to discuss.

We use a similar system, only we use post-its (and scotch tape) to write on, as the white board is too small to write everything on. Also, our handwriting tends to suck.

Don't underestimate the effort required to write such a product. I use bugzilla as a server with Mylyn in eclipse and this is pretty great. Jira is probably going to be your biggest competition and they are pretty damn good.

Fogbugz - because I don't know any better.

In a good way I mean. I started coding full-time a year ago and I like to obsess about solving coding problems, not issue tracking.

So when fogbugz offered their free plan to HN, I signed up, spent a day reading the docs, and never looked back. It's there for me to see what I have to do, and that's (so far) good enough for me.

(sidenote) Same thing with version control. I only starting version control about 4 months ago. Seems like most of the cool-guys use git, so I pay my $7 bucks at github, read their docs , busted the git init, and got back to coding.

(sidenote 2) same thing for vps! Cool kids use linode, paid my $20 bucks, read the docs, ubuntu hardy - back to coding.

Ok, here is what I have always wanted to have:

1. Superfast mode: when im writing bugs/comments out while on the phone to users, I don't have time to write a full bug report. Let me throw them in there quickly, using a single textbox/page (no reloads). I don't want to see the bug after i put it in - i just want to enter them quickly.

2. Quick sorting. I need to be able to pick bugs from a list and throw them into a version/milestone. Drag and drop, no page reloads.

This is what bugs me about trac. Jira solves this with greenhopper, but it's pretty ugly. I'm sure you could simplify it and make it easier.

ClearCase: I hated it because it was used by management to micromanage the workflow. Too big and cumbersome. (circa 2000.)

JIRA: too heavyweight. More options than you would ever want.

FogBugz: the client picked it because it could be used for project estimating, but if anyone (like me) didnt keep their % completions up to date the completion dates went really wacko.

Trac: nice and simple, good features, easy to setup.

Lighthouse: too simple. I like to be able to select and sort my bugs by various criteria and I cant. (Could be I havent taken the time to figure it out yet.)

We've been very happy with Unfuddle.

The bug-tracking is good (rapid entry, fairly powerful filtering/organization). Most importantly for us, it offers a hosted, centralized Git repository.

When you add in the email notifications when tickets get closed, modified or commented upon, it has become a vital and vibrant repository of the state of development - critical for our geographically distributed team.

$10/month for <=10 users.

We also rely heavily on Skype, Google Docs (for wiki and company documents) and Dropbox (for media).

Trac. I like to keep things simple and it's nice how it ties in with SVN.

JIRA is way to "enterprisey"

I haven't found anything even remotely simple enough. My ideal system would not require a server, would be usable entirely from the command line, and would require no more information other than a single text description of the bug.

The closest I've found is http://ditz.rubyforge.org/. I think there is justification for looking for a distributed solution.

You will probably like what we are coming up with. Will release on hackernews once its ready.

have you tried Fossil SCM. It's distributed version control/bug tracking etc in one.

"In one" is frequently the opposite of simplicity. And, I already have everything in bazaar repos.

That maybe true in most cases. But the author made SQLite, which i think is one of the simplest products ever. I found fossil to be on the same wavelength.

I abuse OmniFocus. Works great for a lone developer. Both with the desktop and on the go (with the iPhone app).

Trac internally, Lighthouse externally. The problem I have with ultra-simple bug tracking is that it is almost the "Hello World" of database-backed web app dev. If I just wanted Markdown-formatted issues with 3-level status and comments, I feel like I could have that in 3 hours of Rails dev.

Sure, same with simple CMSes, but I still wouldn't suggest writing one yourself.

So that's very true, but when your target market is developers, the buy vs. build thing can get funky, especially when it's "buy funky offbeat bug tracking vs. build funky offbeat bug tracking".

People (like me) might buy Lighthouse for "normal" tracking, because it's a known quantity, and homebrew for "light" tracking (which we actually also do, for the "submit a bug" link in our application's header).

Have used roundup for a while. Pretty bare-bones, but it is being used in a helpdesk-type environment rather than bug tracking. It has e-mail, command line, and web interfaces to suit different types of users.

I used JIRA quite a bit and Fogbugz too. JIRA is just to cumbersome, cluttered and has do much clicking.

Fogbugz is nicer but the whole effort still feels like a chore and its expensive.

I'm currently using GitHub's issue tracker. It's nice and simple, integrates well with development, and you can customize it how you like with a simple Gmail-like label system.

I haven't used it yet, but Retrospectiva (open-source, rails) looks great: http://retrospectiva.org/

We use Lighthouse here, I don't love it, but definitely don't hate it. It does what we need, more than GitHub's integrated tracker failed to do.

JIRA (great Confluence integration for enterprisey use, but a lot of clicking) and DevTrack (terrible in all ways).

* We are using JIRA and quite happy with it.. It feels a bit enterprisy but feature set is awesome..

Mantis.

Free, simple, my QA guys understand it.

xp-dev.com

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