Complexity is not needed. The ability to assign a unique index number to every bug and record the status ( open, test, closed ) as it changes is all that is necessary. The index number can then be used to track the bug through other tools: message threads, source management, regression tests. So a spreadsheet is just fine.
The challenge is to share. The obvious answer is an online bug tracking tool. There are many such available, all of which I have found too complex, to the point of absurdity. They try to substitute for every other tool with a bug-centric model, but their substitutes are awkward and inferior. The real problem is that they present every user with yet another learning curve.
So I use the excellent, simple shared message threading feature of BaseCamp Project Management. Each bug gets is assigned to a thread along with its index number. The threads are assigned to a category ( Bugs – Open, Bugs – Test, Bugs – Closed ) as appropriate.
This works well. Clients use the message threads naturally. They read and post messages to threads without any learning curve. A little background management turns their activities into a bug tracking system.
There are a couple of problems managing this system. Finding the next unique index number for a new bug, and moving the bugs between the categories requires a bit more trouble than these routine tasks should need.
This week I decided to get serious and fix these problems. I wanted a command line prompt that would tell me what the next unique bug ID would be and that would let me specify an existing bug ID and a new category for it.
I achieved this in a few hours. cURL is used to query the BaseCamp API. TCL to decodes the XML returned from BaseCamp, runs the command line interface and generates the BaseCamp API calls.
This call lists the existing bugs, their status and the next ID to be used.
>tclsh bctid.tcl
1 open {TID1: test1}
Next TID 2
This call changes the status of Bug #1 to test
>tclsh bctid.tcl test 1
1 test {TID1: test1}
Next TID 2
Links
Bascamp
Basecamp API
cURL
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