Bug tracking

Doug Way dway at riskmetrics.com
Wed Nov 28 05:55:08 UTC 2001


(I meant to reply to this awhile ago and then it got lost in the cracks...)

goran.hultgren at bluefish.se wrote:
> 
> Kevin Fisher <kgf at golden.net> wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 14, 2001 at 08:55:28PM +0100, goran.hultgren at bluefish.se wrote:
> > > Don't forget JitterBug. It is very simple, only demands Apache as a
> > > prereq, is easily
> > > hackable (I have added a bunch nice features to it) uses email and web
> > > in a neat way.
> >
> > Sounds neat!  Is this Squeak-based?  I've never heard of JitterBug...
> 
> http://samba.anu.edu.au/jitterbug/
> 
> (snip)
> 
> As I said earlier - I am offering to set one up for try-out when Doug
> Way gives me the word. :-)
> I have hosts and bandwidth for the try-out, no problem. And then if we
> like it we move it to Squeakfoundation.org.

We could have it set up just to see how it works, I suppose.

We'd need to think about how our current bug reporting/fixing/harvesting/base-image-updating process might fit into how JitterBug works, though.

Most bug-tracking tools (that I've seen, anyway) are geared toward a simple model of a user community which reports bugs, and an organization/company which tracks and fixes the bugs.  The situation with Squeak is a bit different, since the user community reports bugs, but then many in the user community offer up bug fixes, and then there's also a small group of harvesters which evaluates the fixes, and then the SqC group which takes most of these and issues updates, although SqC will also sometimes fix bugs directly or accept community-submitted fixes directly.  So, it's a bit more complicated than the simpler model. :-)

But maybe JitterBug could support this sort of process, I'm not sure.  Or perhaps it could with some customization.  But if we'd want more than a little customization, it might be better to write a tool in Squeak to handle it instead.

So, I guess I'm saying that I'd be curious to look at it if you wanted to set it up sometime, but I wouldn't guarantee that we'd actually end up using it.  At the least we may get some ideas from it, though, even if we didn't end up using it.

- Doug Way
  dway at riskmetrics.com



goran.hultgren at bluefish.se wrote:
> 
> http://samba.anu.edu.au/jitterbug/
> 
> In short:
> - It is NOT written in Squeak
> - It is originally written by Andrew Tridgell (The SAMBA guy)
> - It is written as a few cgi-bin binaries in plain C (but neat and
> simple code) and thus only needs a normal Apache installation on a Un*x
> box
> - It stores the reports as simple files and uses grep for searching
> - It is VERY easy to add new properties to the search form and the
> bugreports
> - You submit bug reports using a simple HTML form. We could easily whip
> up a simple UI from within Squeak for that too I guess.
> - It uses email for feedback to the bugreporter and it also receives
> followup email from the bugreporter and includes that into the system,
> example with feedback and followup:
> http://samba.anu.edu.au/cgi-bin/jitterbug/answered?id=84;user=guest
> - You have "folders" where you can group the reports and you have
> "users" in the system which can take responsibility of reports. It also
> has email notification on reports and folders and has good logging so
> that you can see the history of a report.
> 
> I just tried it with Scamper and even if the layout looks a bit freaky
> it seems to work (we can always change the layout to make it look more
> Squeakish, perhaps mimicking colors etc from the Squeak Swiki)
> 
> I have added (at my customer) a bunch of new properties (that are
> searchable to the reports) and also an attachment feature so that you
> can attach screenshots etc to your report using HTTP POST.
> 
> I also translated the whole thing into swedish and changed the look a
> bit - not hard to work with the HTML either.
> 
> As I said earlier - I am offering to set one up for try-out when Doug
> Way gives me the word. :-)
> I have hosts and bandwidth for the try-out, no problem. And then if we
> like it we move it to Squeakfoundation.org. Ok, now I will shut up. :-)
> 
> > Well, testing is near and dear to my heart (it's my "real world" job)
> > so I've always wondered how I could bring Squeak into the game.  A nice
> > Squeak-based defect tracker would be great...the portability would come
> > in handy as I've always run into problems when the upper crust decides we
> > need to switch to a new platform every once in a while. :)  Plus, integrating
> > it with a SWiki just seems like the "natural" thing to do..
> 
> Well, I actually was not proposing to build a bugreporting system in
> Squeak - quite the opposite. :-) I just think that setting up Jitterbug
> (which is robust, works and is hackable) which would take a few hours of
> my time, is a very reasonable first "go" at a simple system. And then,
> if we decide to build the super-duper-Squeak-system, we can easily
> migrate the existing reports into that since it's just files.
> 
> <CSOTD>
> "Ok, a little tip then. Perhaps you have seen this in the code? It is a
> Squeakish way of typing 'PENDING'. #flag: doesn't do anything but this
> enables us to search for our PENDINGS. Try
> searching for senders of workAround (by selecting that word and typing
> Alt-n (Win32) and you will see what I mean). Andreas is obviously fond
> of this technique! :-)"
> 
> self flag: #workAround
> </CSOTD>
> 
> regards, Göran




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