bug tracking?

[JeffBowlesjab@uplanet.com]

At 01:15 PM 6/23/97 -0700, you wrote:
>background: we've got a few reasonably complex products to track, each
>running on half a dozen platforms (actually, it's almost all java code, but
>if you think that eliminates platform dependencies you've been smoking too
>many press releases).  we've currently got about a dozen developers + tech
>support + QA, but we need a solution that'll support some growth.
>
>what do you use for bug tracking?  do you like it?

	I have "DDTS" (Defect-Something-Tracking-System) from Atria,
	who are the Purify folks, and although it's really powerful and
	has a pretty GUI interface, the command-line utilities and glass-tube
	stuff isn't very good and it's not a lot of fun to reconfigure if you
	don't like their default screens (et al).

	However, it *is* configurable, which is saying something. Also,
	each bug is stored in a flat ASCII file - which has performance
	implications, but makes it easy to look at things if you forget
	which fields you want for something.

	It is expensive, although I don't remember the exact amount.

	I don't know what choices there are, out there, so I can't call
	it "the best of a bad lot". Most not-home-grown bug systems
	aren't very good, and I've only seen one home-grown one
	that I'd buy if I hadn't worked for the company.

	One sore point: the two database companies I worked for
	had the two worst bug database applications I've. One of the
	two places had Nazis sitting on top of the database, insisting
	that if you weren't using it *exactly* the way they wanted you
	to, you could get screwed. ("You don't need to know what the
	schema is! Why do you care what different values can go into
	that field?") 

	The company that writes a decent, small bug database in
	a portable way (hell, maybe with Java) that's easy to use,
	easy to script reports/updates, and easy to query, will make
	a lot of people very happy.

	-Jeff Bowles