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From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2006-08-21 22:00:16
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Before I open this up to a wider and noisier audience on -devel, I thought I'd ask here. What bug tracking software have you all interacted with? What are the pros and cons? SF is poor: it provides users the ability to modify all sorts of things they don't understand our use of, like priority or category. Users regularly do things like think that "logging" means "starting gaim." It offers poor filtering abilities, and its view of the bug's history is less than ideal. I cannot interact with it via email. Bugzilla is in my opinion worse. It offers insufficient history in many cases, unless I obsessively save emails. It is simply too huge for our needs, being better at handling something like gnome or redhat with tons of unrelated or semi-related projects than something like gaim. It is UBBER confusing. RT: it is unfamiliar to most people. I can interact with it via web or email or command line client. It offers a top down view of a bug, vrs. SF's bottom up view. It lets us control what users can set, without confusing them. Downside: changing things can take several pages in the web interface. it offers good filtering. It has an integratable faq tool (RTFM). I've used it before. Trac: it integrates well with subversion. It doesn't seem to integrate with any other verson control system. It doesn't seem to let me interact with it by email. Its unfamiliar to most of us. Its web interface has been praised by several people I've talked to who have used it. My own feeling is to go with RT/RTFM, primarily based on the fact that I can interact with it by email and the fact that I've used it before, and found it more usable than I do either SF or bugzilla. My feeling about trac is that its a significant plus if we stick with svn, but doesn't offer much over sf if we go with any other system. luke |
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From: Gary K. <gr...@re...> - 2006-08-21 23:29:59
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Luke Schierer wrote: > Before I open this up to a wider and noisier audience on -devel, I > thought I'd ask here. > > What bug tracking software have you all interacted with? What are > the pros and cons? > > SF is poor: it provides users the ability to modify all sorts of > things they don't understand our use of, like priority or category. > Users regularly do things like think that "logging" means "starting > gaim." It offers poor filtering abilities, and its view of the bug's > history is less than ideal. I cannot interact with it via email. I've already migrated guifications off of sourceforge, that alone says something ;) > Bugzilla is in my opinion worse. It offers insufficient history in > many cases, unless I obsessively save emails. It is simply too huge > for our needs, being better at handling something like gnome or > redhat with tons of unrelated or semi-related projects than something > like gaim. It is UBBER confusing. Totally overkill. > RT: it is unfamiliar to most people. I can interact with it via web > or email or command line client. It offers a top down view of a bug, > vrs. SF's bottom up view. It lets us control what users can set, > without confusing them. Downside: changing things can take several > pages in the web interface. it offers good filtering. It has an > integratable faq tool (RTFM). I've used it before. Haven't used it. > Trac: it integrates well with subversion. It doesn't seem to > integrate with any other verson control system. It doesn't seem to > let me interact with it by email. Its unfamiliar to most of us. Its > web interface has been praised by several people I've talked to who > have used it. Trac does support other SCMs, you just need a plugin for it. To the best of my knowledge, the only one that is "mature" is the subversion one. Although, to be completely honest, I haven't tried the others. Another plus about trac is that it's stupid simple to write plugins for it, which of course gives us a lot of options for improving the interface and so on. Also, there are already a bunch of preexisting plugins for trac up at http://trac-hacks.org/. Unfortunately, many of them leave a lot to be desired. > My own feeling is to go with RT/RTFM, primarily based on the fact > that I can interact with it by email and the fact that I've used it > before, and found it more usable than I do either SF or bugzilla. My > feeling about trac is that its a significant plus if we stick with > svn, but doesn't offer much over sf if we go with any other system. > > luke -- Gary Kramlich <gr...@re...> |
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From: Evan S. <ev...@dr...> - 2006-08-22 01:13:39
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PGP.sig
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We're using Trac extensively for Adium, and on the whole I've been really happy with it. I don't have any experience with the non- subversion version control integrations, but its integration with subversion, anyways, is extremely handy. I can write commit messages like: "Made seventeen tasty sandwiches - fixes #4523. Also, refs #4525, which suggests more food be available." and Trac puts the revision number (automatically linked to the changelog and diffs) with the message in both those two tickets, and closes ticket #4523. What else does it do well? It's easy to generate reports based on various criteria (ownership, milestone/target, etc.), and save them for later viewing. Its wiki-style pages (and support for the same formatting style make in tickets) make cross-talk between documentation, tickets, and changesets simple. Plugins, as Gary mentioned, make it quite expandable, and with css you can make it look the way you want. What doesn't it do well? The default configuration suffers one of the same problems Luke mentioned about sf.net's tracketers - anonymous users can set priority, severity, and milestone. I think this should be fairly easily changed with some hacking, but I haven't tried. It doesn't do inter-ticket dependencies the way bugzilla can handle (from what I've seen), so those have to be managed textually ("This ticket depends upon #2049" or whatever). -Evan |
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From: Ethan B. <ebl...@cs...> - 2006-08-22 01:32:53
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Luke Schierer spake unto us the following wisdom: > What bug tracking software have you all interacted with? What are > the pros and cons? My analysis of both SF and bugzilla are very similar to yours. For the record, however, I would take sf over bugzilla any day. > RT: it is unfamiliar to most people. I can interact with it via web > or email or command line client. It offers a top down view of a bug, > vrs. SF's bottom up view. It lets us control what users can set, > without confusing them. Downside: changing things can take several > pages in the web interface. it offers good filtering. It has an > integratable faq tool (RTFM). I've used it before. What sort of changing takes several pages? If normal interactions (create a bug, add a comment, close a bug) are simple, that's good enough ... infrequent actions are welcome to be somewhat more cumbersome. > Trac: it integrates well with subversion. It doesn't seem to > integrate with any other verson control system. It doesn't seem to > let me interact with it by email. Its unfamiliar to most of us. Its > web interface has been praised by several people I've talked to who > have used it. There is a trac-monotone plugin. I have no idea how far along it is. As I believe I've mentioned before, I think monotone is a front-line contender (the front-line contender, for me) for a replacement VCS. As a bonus, they're getting pretty serious about collecting real-world usage scenarios and workflows and making sure they work -- one of the lead developers asked me the other day what issues I see blocking it as a switchover for Gaim, and what work flow issues I see with our development model. Even if we don't want to switch, they're very concerned about making it comfortable for as many people as possible. Oops, that turned into a monotone advertisement. We can probably find or create an email interface for trac, at least for use by developers if not the whole wide world. I agree that it would be nice to not have to load a web page to file comments on bugs/etc. > My own feeling is to go with RT/RTFM, primarily based on the fact > that I can interact with it by email and the fact that I've used it > before, and found it more usable than I do either SF or bugzilla. My > feeling about trac is that its a significant plus if we stick with > svn, but doesn't offer much over sf if we go with any other system. I have grown to be a big fan of integrated VCS/issue tracker, and I've never even actually used one. ;-) It just seems like so clearly the Right Idea that I can't believe how long it's taken to come around ... maybe I'll find that it's not all it's cracked up to be in practice, but I think this is a bonus for trac, myself. That said, you're our heaviest issue tracker user, and that certainly carries some weight in the decision process. Ethan --=20 The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy for evils]. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764 |
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From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2006-08-22 01:47:28
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On 8/21/06, Ethan Blanton <ebl...@cs...> wrote: > I have grown to be a big fan of integrated VCS/issue tracker, and I've > never even actually used one. ;-) It just seems like so clearly the > Right Idea that I can't believe how long it's taken to come around ... > maybe I'll find that it's not all it's cracked up to be in practice, > but I think this is a bonus for trac, myself. I've never used one, either. Here's the one thing I would love it for: I would love to go to a page with a list of patches, view them all inline, type in a commit message and click "Accept" to apply the patch and close the ticket in a single click. If Trac can do *that*, we are *so* taking it. -s. |
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From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2006-08-22 03:19:00
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On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 09:32:49PM -0400, Ethan Blanton wrote: > Luke Schierer spake unto us the following wisdom: > > What bug tracking software have you all interacted with? What are > > the pros and cons? > > My analysis of both SF and bugzilla are very similar to yours. For > the record, however, I would take sf over bugzilla any day. > > > RT: it is unfamiliar to most people. I can interact with it via web > > or email or command line client. It offers a top down view of a bug, > > vrs. SF's bottom up view. It lets us control what users can set, > > without confusing them. Downside: changing things can take several > > pages in the web interface. it offers good filtering. It has an > > integratable faq tool (RTFM). I've used it before. > > What sort of changing takes several pages? If normal interactions > (create a bug, add a comment, close a bug) are simple, that's good > enough ... infrequent actions are welcome to be somewhat more > cumbersome. http://www.bestpractical.com/images/screenshots/rt/3.0/readticket.gif shows the basic interface for reading a bug. There are links for "resolve" (you do not close bugs as a developer, the submitter or (in the case of abandoned bugs) the system must do that.) and comment in the history and at the top of the page. You'd use the "people" link to reassign a bug. You'd use the "links" link to create bug dependencies or to merge bugs. Unmerging bugs doesn't work well when I use RT, it might have improved. You can directly take a bug you are viewing if you are logged in and have access. So to assign to yourself does not require a different page. the "history" link is mostly useless unless you are trying to figure out what someone else did with a bug. I might use it, I doubt many other people would. "Basics" lets you move a bug to a different queue, change the subject, and mess with priority. It also has some other options we wouldn't use. I doubt we'd use "Dates" "People" deals with who gets emails about this bug, who owns it (excepting the "take" option). I'd use this. HOPEFULLY you all would if I mis-assign something ;-) "links" is described above. "jumbo" is new, it wasn't there when I used RT. the docs say it has all of the above, plus the comment/reply fields. You can search for bugs, and save your search. This is essentially filtering the view of the bug queue. Its alot more flexible than the filters SF provides. There are "comments" and "replies." Comments are by default hidden from the requestor/submitter. IE when I want to ask one of you to look at something, there's no need to email the submittor. "replies" are by default visible to the submitter. You can tell it to include an article from RTFM, the faq manager, in a reply. This is essentially a more powerful canned responce system. more on this at http://wiki.bestpractical.com/index.cgi?ManualUsingWebInterface The email interface appears to be poorly documented, and I'd have to research this to provide examples of how to use it. The debian package rt3.4-clients might have some of the neccessary docs. For users, they would just reply to the email and the system would take care of it for them, ie reopening their bug if it was marked STALLED (SF pending). Similarly, it can be set to create new tickets from mail sent to an email address. This would have some problems, such as spam filtering, but it would be essentially replacing having Sean and I seeing emails in our inboxes where users ask for support directly, with the same spam management issues I would face anyway. It would be a merge of the various SF trackers and associated mailing lists. luke |
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From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2006-08-22 03:21:38
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On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 09:32:49PM -0400, Ethan Blanton wrote: > > I have grown to be a big fan of integrated VCS/issue tracker, and I've > never even actually used one. ;-) It just seems like so clearly the > Right Idea that I can't believe how long it's taken to come around ... > maybe I'll find that it's not all it's cracked up to be in practice, > but I think this is a bonus for trac, myself. > > That said, you're our heaviest issue tracker user, and that certainly > carries some weight in the decision process. > > Ethan I want to pick something that will be more used than the SF trackers are, something that you all will be willing to interact with. If that means it is slightly less ideal for me, the end result would still be a big win for me, as tracker items would actually be closed, merged, and so on regularly and consistently. For that reason I've asked for opinions rather than just waiting to have my grubby hands at a command prompt and experimenting. Though it might come to that anyway, if for example I go to install one of them and find that its confusing me to no end. luke |
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From: Evan S. <ev...@dr...> - 2006-08-22 03:26:59
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PGP.sig
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On Aug 21, 2006, at 11:22 PM, Luke Schierer wrote: > Though it might come to that > anyway, if for example I go to install one of them and find that its > confusing me to no end. Luke, if it'd be at all helpful for you, I'd be happy to make you an account on Adium trac. We've got a Waiting On Libgaim milestone that's a place we throw Gaim bug reports / crashes (on good days, with a link to the Gaim support tracker) which would make a fine real- world sandbox if you're so inclined. -Evan |
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From: Mark D. <ma...@ki...> - 2006-08-22 05:47:23
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On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:22:34 -0400, Luke Schierer wrote > On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 09:32:49PM -0400, Ethan Blanton wrote: > > > > I have grown to be a big fan of integrated VCS/issue tracker, and I've > > never even actually used one. ;-) It just seems like so clearly the > > Right Idea that I can't believe how long it's taken to come around ... > > maybe I'll find that it's not all it's cracked up to be in practice, > > but I think this is a bonus for trac, myself. > > > > That said, you're our heaviest issue tracker user, and that certainly > > carries some weight in the decision process. > > > > Ethan > > I want to pick something that will be more used than the SF trackers > are, something that you all will be willing to interact with. If > that means it is slightly less ideal for me, the end result would > still be a big win for me, as tracker items would actually be closed, > merged, and so on regularly and consistently. For that reason I've > asked for opinions rather than just waiting to have my grubby hands > at a command prompt and experimenting. Though it might come to that > anyway, if for example I go to install one of them and find that its > confusing me to no end. > > luke Sounds like sourceforge and bugzilla have been eliminated. Between RT and Trac I vote for Trac. It's possible that Fogcreek would license FogBugz to us for free, but even if they did I think I'd still vote for Trac. The FogBugz website says, "Academic and Non Profit Organizations - Please contact us via email." -Mark |
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From: Ethan B. <ebl...@cs...> - 2006-08-22 13:18:29
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Mark Doliner spake unto us the following wisdom:
> Sounds like sourceforge and bugzilla have been eliminated. Between RT and
> Trac I vote for Trac.
>=20
> It's possible that Fogcreek would license FogBugz to us for free, but eve=
n if
> they did I think I'd still vote for Trac. The FogBugz website says, "Aca=
demic
> and Non Profit Organizations - Please contact us via email."
A friend of mine whose opinion I greatly respect, and who I queried
about various trackers (because I know he has used them) provided this
comment on FogBugz, which I had not brought up -- he felt strongly
enough to volunteer it:
Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, even give=20
consideration to using the fucking abomination called "fogbugz".
For the record, his response to "Do you like trac?":
No, but I like it more than the others. [It's] got a boatload of
baggage with it, [wiki, svn browser, tickets, timelines]. It's
pretty nice with svn.
Ethan
--=20
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils]. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
-- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764
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From: Tim R. <om...@ho...> - 2006-08-22 14:40:23
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Ethan Blanton wrote: > Mark Doliner spake unto us the following wisdom: >> Sounds like sourceforge and bugzilla have been eliminated. Between RT and >> Trac I vote for Trac. >> >> It's possible that Fogcreek would license FogBugz to us for free, but even if >> they did I think I'd still vote for Trac. The FogBugz website says, "Academic >> and Non Profit Organizations - Please contact us via email." > > A friend of mine whose opinion I greatly respect, and who I queried > about various trackers (because I know he has used them) provided this > comment on FogBugz, which I had not brought up -- he felt strongly > enough to volunteer it: > > Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, even give > consideration to using the fucking abomination called "fogbugz". > > For the record, his response to "Do you like trac?": > > No, but I like it more than the others. [It's] got a boatload of > baggage with it, [wiki, svn browser, tickets, timelines]. It's > pretty nice with svn. > We use Jira at work. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it though. (Plus it costs money I believe). Although if someone else has used Jira and can compare it to Trac and RT, that might give me a better idea about how good they are. --Tim |
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From: Daniel A. <dan...@gm...> - 2006-08-22 15:03:53
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On 8/22/06, Tim Ringenbach <om...@ho...> wrote: > We use Jira at work. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it though. (Plus it > costs money I believe). Although if someone else has used Jira and can > compare it to Trac and RT, that might give me a better idea about how > good they are. Tim beat me to it. I was actually starting to write an email about JIRA. We also use it where I work. It is really customizable, you can put together all sorts of reports and stuff and it is easy to search and use. From what I can tell, it does about everything that RT does and has a really polished interface. There are a large number of plugins, including an email interface, Subversion integration and Wiki integration - I'm not sure about other VCS, but the plugin interface is relatively simple. JIRA is not OSS, but they do have a free-beer "Open Source / Non Profit" license that we would certainly qualify for. Apache has an instance and a bunch of Apache subprojects are using it. FWIW, people here love it. I haven't actually used RT (or Trac very much at all), so I'm not really in a position to offer a meaningful comparison. -D |
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From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2006-08-23 16:15:10
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On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 11:03:47AM -0400, Daniel Atallah wrote: > On 8/22/06, Tim Ringenbach <om...@ho...> wrote: > > We use Jira at work. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it though. (Plus it > > costs money I believe). Although if someone else has used Jira and can > > compare it to Trac and RT, that might give me a better idea about how > > good they are. > > Tim beat me to it. I was actually starting to write an email about > JIRA. We also use it where I work. It is really customizable, you > can put together all sorts of reports and stuff and it is easy to > search and use. From what I can tell, it does about everything that > RT does and has a really polished interface. There are a large number > of plugins, including an email interface, Subversion integration and > Wiki integration - I'm not sure about other VCS, but the plugin > interface is relatively simple. > > JIRA is not OSS, but they do have a free-beer "Open Source / Non > Profit" license that we would certainly qualify for. Apache has an > instance and a bunch of Apache subprojects are using it. > > FWIW, people here love it. > > I haven't actually used RT (or Trac very much at all), so I'm not > really in a position to offer a meaningful comparison. > > -D JIRA looks like it is worth looking into, based on the screenshots and descriptions on its home page. luke |
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From: Tim R. <om...@ho...> - 2006-08-24 00:19:17
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Luke Schierer wrote: > JIRA looks like it is worth looking into, based on the screenshots > and descriptions on its home page. I could probably arrange to get you a login to ours to play around with if you want. --Tim |
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From: Mark D. <ma...@ki...> - 2006-08-24 06:30:14
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On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:03:47 -0400, Daniel Atallah wrote > On 8/22/06, Tim Ringenbach <om...@ho...> wrote: > > We use Jira at work. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it though. (Plus it > > costs money I believe). Although if someone else has used Jira and can > > compare it to Trac and RT, that might give me a better idea about how > > good they are. > > Tim beat me to it. I was actually starting to write an email about > JIRA. We also use it where I work. It is really customizable, you > can put together all sorts of reports and stuff and it is easy to > search and use. From what I can tell, it does about everything that > RT does and has a really polished interface. There are a large number > of plugins, including an email interface, Subversion integration and > Wiki integration - I'm not sure about other VCS, but the plugin > interface is relatively simple. > > JIRA is not OSS, but they do have a free-beer "Open Source / Non > Profit" license that we would certainly qualify for. Apache has an > instance and a bunch of Apache subprojects are using it. > > FWIW, people here love it. > > I haven't actually used RT (or Trac very much at all), so I'm not > really in a position to offer a meaningful comparison. > > -D JIRA is ok. I think I prefer Trac slightly. -Mark |
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From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2006-08-24 16:47:54
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On 8/23/06, Mark Doliner <ma...@ki...> wrote: > JIRA is ok. I think I prefer Trac slightly. It would be nice to run all free software, too. -s. |
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