How important is a bug tracking tool for a lone developer, and which one along with a VCS should I look at? [closed]

Answer 1

I think you should go with FogBugz. It's online, free for 2 developers, it integrates with your source control. I think bugtracking is second to source control in terms of project management especially for a single developer. You need to be able to tell when you've fixed all the reported bugs so you can predict a ship date on a feature etc etc..

An automated build process will take a huge burden off of you to be able to create your software on demand (in case of deletions etc). A CI process may be a little overkill but automated builds rule.

If you're worried about putting it on your laptop but still want to roll your own you can go to slicehost and get an ubuntu box for a subversion/trac solution online for 20 bucks a month. I do this for some of my personal projects...

Answer 2

A VCS is important whether you're working alone or not.

Really, it should be there for those moments when you realize you've made a mistake and want to rollback to what you had yesterday or this morning, or maybe you've just made a different decision in the implementation and want to branch so you can test things out without effecting the core of what you've written so far.

All in all, it is a nice thing to have. And you're better off being safe than sorry.

As far as the bug tracker, that is more your personal preference. I like Redmine, which integrates with SVN, git, etc. Others prefer Trac. But either way they will be able to run on your laptop while taking a minimal amount of resources. Especially when you consider that you're the only one using them.

I would check out http://bitnami.org/ they offer packaged Bug Trackers that you just execute and it will start its own little server on the port of your choice, and you can stop it when you're not using it.

Answer 3

Although not an explicit bug tracker, you can use tiddlywiki which is a great wiki in a self-contained HTML file, which makes it easy to have it under version control.

The reason I'm mentioning this, is because sooner or later, you will want to take notes in addition to the bug listings.

Hope this helps

Answer 4

You should take a look at Fossil. It's a modern distributed (Open Source) version control system that runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. It also has a integrated Bug Tracker and Wiki. It was created by Dr. D. Richard Hipp, the same guy who created SQLite. And, in fact, it utilizes SQLite as the underlying storage system for the version control system, bug tracker, and Wiki.

Fossil was specifically designed to meet the needs of the small development team or individual developer, and it does an excellent job. However, depending on the specifics, it can also work pretty well for a larger development team (for example, it is being used for SQLite's developement).

(I know this is an old question, but I came across Fossil about six months ago, and have become a big fan of it (coming from CVS -> SVN -> Hg -> Bzr -> Git over the past 15 years) for my own work, and for the team at work.)