[plt-dev] Bug reports

Stick!

On Feb 23, 2010, at 9:42 AM, Eli Barzilay wrote:

> I've recently looked at some of the capabilities of bug reports on
> various hosted places.
>
> * One appealing feature is using github (since we'll have a mirror
>  there), but it doesn't look like it allows generating reports from
>  emails or some way to generate reports anonymously (perhaps using
>  the api, but this complicates things).  Also, it doesn't look like
>  you can get email notifications, and no attachements.  And another
>  problem is that people need to create accounts there instead of
>  managing it from a central place.
>
> * Most other similar places are similarly limited (launchpad does have
>  attachements, but is limited in a similar way).
>
> * The most promising thing that I've seen is a pair of websites:
>  tenderapp.com and lighthouse.com.  IIUC, the intention of the former
>  is as a front end for users to post "issues", and for the latter to
>  be dealing with more concrete bug reports.  The interfaces fr both
>  are similarly polished, but there are some differences: the first
>  can accept new reports from anyone (no login needed), and the second
>  has more of the usual stuff you expect a bug report tool to have.
>  In addition, the second one can be integrated with a repository:
>  accepting keywords in emails that can do almost anything (close
>  bugs, assign them, etc).
>
>  For companies, I think that the intention is for some QA department
>  to deal with the first and file bugs against the second (with a way
>  to link the two).  The main problem with using only lighthouse that
>  I see is that bugs cannot be filed by unregistered users -- it is
>  possible to send an email that is coming from a registered user
>  (eg "bugs at plt-scheme.org") and have that create a report, but then
>  the bug seems to come from that address and I don't see a way to CC
>  the real bug reporter.
>
> In any case, I can't really allocate more time for this.  I was hoping
> that Sam, being the most vocal about how gnats is ancient, would take
> it on, but he's not interested.
>
> So, in case someone wants to look further into these options, and
> either find a way to make one of them do what we need, or find another
> option that does that, or even play with gnats itself to make it do
> the extra things that these tools do: please contact me and I'll tell
> you what the basic requirements are, and I'll help in finding a way to
> migrate the current bug DB.  Otherwise, it looks like sticking with
> the current setup is the most profitable.
>
> (This is not an attempt at starting a discussion about these things,
> I've spent enough time trying to figure them out...)
>
> --  
>          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli  
> Barzilay:
>                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is  
> Life!
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