Bug Tracking

All complex software projects have bugs, wish lists, and change requests. A number of tools have been developed to help keep track of bugs, but tools are only part of a larger process.

Why Track Bugs?

If you have a lot of time, or a small project, it might be possible to ignore the tracking of bugs. If a bug is reported, you just fix it and send out a fixed version or a patch. If you need more information on the bug, you just talk to the person who reported it.

The situation becomes more complicated, however, when more bugs are reported than can be dealt with immediately. This can happen because of a deluge of bug reports (perhaps after a new release) or changing workloads of the developers.

Another problem is that the bugs themselves may be unable to be solved immediately - perhaps the fix is difficult, or requires a re-design of important data structures, more information may be required to diagnose the problem, or maybe the bug cannot be fixed until a library or tool is fixed.

In these cases (and many more), we need to track the bug, to make sure it isn't lost, forgotten, or ignored. A bug tracking system is a process for dealing with bugs that ensures we keep all necessary information about bugs. That process might involve using a specialized bug-tracking tool, but it isn't necessary.

Features Of A Bug Tracking System

Here's a list of features I consider to be essential in any bug tracking system.

Add a new bugs to be tracked.
Uniquely identify a bug.
Add new information about a bug.
Remove a fixed bug from the system.
Show all known information about a bug.

Here are some features that aren't essential, but are nice to have.

Merge two bugs together.
Categorize each bug (by subsystem, by

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