
Ask YC: Your bug tracker - robmnl
For all you YC and non-YC teams:<p>I'm building a better &#38; faster bug tracker. Entering and managing bugs should be fast &#38; easy.<p>My question to you: what's the bug tracker you currently use?  What do you like about it, what not?  What would you wish for in a bug tracker?
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nostrademons
I've used Bugzilla, Mantis, JIRA, Netbeans' bug tracker, and FogBugz and found
that they all basically suck. So I'm just going to give you a list of features
that I'd like to see:

1.) A clean & simple UI. Reporters should just have a text field to enter the
bug description and a way to attach
screenshots/tracebacks/logfiles/tests/patches. All the
priority/component/version/milestone/assignee stuff should be filled in
afterwards, once the development team has been notified of the bug. Reporters
usually have no clue what any of that means, even if they're in the same
organization.

2.) It should be possible to submit bugs without a user account, with just an
e-mail for further clarification. I can't tell you the number of times I've
gone to submit a bug for some open-source software and then given up when I
had to complete a lengthy sign-up process.

3.) E-mail notification, both for developers and for reporters.

4.) Integration with unit testing frameworks - I'd like a way to attach test
cases to bugs and then automatically run all the tests with say JUnit or Nose.
When a test fails, it'd be nice if I could be linked straight back to the
initial bug report, to see where the regression is. Make sure you play nice
with existing conventions for where tests go, eg. the tests/ subdirectory that
many Java IDEs setup or the functional-testing facilities in web frameworks
like Rails and Pylons.

5.) FogBugz has a nice screen-capture utility that's very handy for desktop
software..if you can get your hands on a copy, you may want to check that out.

6.) A programmatic API. There're two main use-cases I want here. I want to
hook the feedback form on the website itself up to the bugtracker, so that
every time a user submits feedback it goes straight into the bugtracker and
sends me a notification e-mail. I also want to hook existing functional-
testing frameworks up to the bugtracker, so that if a test fails and is not
already associated with a bug, it creates a new bug with a description of the
failing test case.

7.) Check out the Subversion integration in Trac...I've never used Trac myself
(keep meaning to check it out), but I've heard some very good things about it.

There's my wishlist. I'd be willing to pay FogBugz-level prices (hundred or so
per seat) for a bugtracker that was actually useful. I wouldn't be willing to
pay JIRA prices (couple thousand per seat).

~~~
mrevelle
We use Lighthouse (<http://lighthouseapp.com/>) and find it simple,
extensible, and useful.

It covers most of your points but doesn't include bug reporting/tracking by
people not on a project (e.g., users). Their API and email integration should
make it easy to integrate your own "report a bug" form.

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emmett
We use Trac at Justin.tv. The only thing that really bothers me is that it's
kind of slow - up to 2 seconds to load a page.

Other than that, it seems "good enough", but I'm sure there are advances to be
made that I've never thought of.

~~~
foodawg
I'm going to second Trac. I'm using it primarily because of its easy
integration with Subversion.

~~~
ivankirigin
Indeed. I just started using it, and it's quite good.

Has anyone experienced a speedup by not using the built in server?

~~~
SwellJoe
We had it running fine under FastCGI, as well as mod_python for a few quite
large projects and about 30 active developers (and a few dozen moderately
active users). Speed wasn't a problem in either of those modes, but I recall
that when it was straight CGI or using it's own server it was close to
unusable.

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brl
I use trac which is integrated into my IDE (Eclipse) with a task management
plugin called Mylyn. It's free and it does everything I need to stay organized
with the other 6 developers on my team.

What problem are you solving again?

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ACSparks
I submitted a similar idea as a last second YC application.

Basic points of differentiation were that it would be fully extensible
(add/remove any input fields), and that it would have a killer API.

The API would allow you to submit issues from anywhere you please: you could
write a plugin for Eclipse (or favorite IDE) or you could widgetize it into a
js include file so people could submit issues directly from your web page
(think beta testers).

~~~
SwellJoe
Just wanted to chime in that Roundup and trac are extensible with regards to
fields, as well as actions. Both have a pretty good API, as well.

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inklesspen
We should be able to easily split one bug report into multiple reports (for
cases where one bug has multiple causes, or the reporter incorrectly perceived
multiple bugs as a single bug) while keeping history of the case. And vice
versa, for when a single bug is reported multiple times. Most bug trackers
just let you resolve things as duplicates, which is kinda half-assed.

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gaborcselle
Here at Xobni, we were first using Retrospectiva: <http://retrospectiva.org/>.
Pretty UI, fast, Rails-based, simple to use and tweak. Free.

We later switched to Jira, which is expensive but powerful and a bit
cluttered. Jira actually charges a flat price, not per seat as nostrademons
suggests.

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brlewis
This came up 60 days ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45666>

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ced
I've never used one. Much like version control, I've never felt the need for
it. If you have a team of 2-4 coders, and aren't preparing the next version of
Firefox, why aren't text files/emails sufficient?

~~~
almost
A team of 4 coders, WITHOUT version control?? Oh dear...

~~~
ced
He, I was just saying. I've always coded alone, or with only one other person.
And that person was using my code as a library. I figured that working like
this would scale, modular and bottom-up. Maybe not.

(besides, isn't VC a relatively new proposition? I'd be surprised if PG and
co. used it for Viaweb)

Let's leave version control aside. Could someone spell out why bug tracking is
so great? Thanks.

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intellectronica
Launchad [ <https://launchpad.net/> ] is a fantastic option if you're working
on a free software project. It's free and hosted and has some great features
you don't find in any of the other trackers.

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wlievens
I use Trac and I really like it.

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rams
Roundup

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yrashk
issuesdone.com :)

