More on Bugzilla
Just to expand on my previous post... Bugzilla offers a number of features
and a number of annoyances. In fact, anything that's not a feature but
generates bugmail is an annoyance, in my opinion.
From a developer's point of view, the features (and I only list features which
generate bugmail below; searching and such are not on the "possible annoyance"
list) are:
- Ability to have bugs filed and steps to reproduce the bug reported.
- Ability to have testcases attached.
- Ability to prioritize bugs.
- Ability to classify bugs based on what code is involved or what sort of
code-level issue it is.
- Ability to track progress on fixing a bug and discuss possible fixes.
- Ability to request, give, and receive reviews
- Ability to attach patches.
- Ability to resolve bugs.
- Ability to cc people who need to look at a bug on it and request that
they do so.
From a project manager's (drivers') point of view, I think the features would be:
- Ability to receive approval requests
- Ability to receive requests for blocking status
- Ability to set approval or blocking flags
- Ability to cc people who need to look at a bug on it and request that
they do so.
- Ability to track progress toward major project goals via tracking bugs.
From a QA perspective, the features are:
- Ability to have bugs filed and steps to reproduce the bug reported.
- Ability to create testcases and attach them to bugs.
- Ability to categorize bugs based on the code that's buggy.
- Ability to cc people who need to look at a bug on it and request that
they do so.
- Ability to mark bugs as verified.
From a user perspective, the features are:
- Ability to file bugs.
- Ability to find out when a bug is resolved.
Note that for many operations only some of those groups are interested in
the bugmail. Also note that many people wear multiple hats (the
developer+QA+user combination being rather common, as well as the QA+user
combination).
The bugzilla comments that tend to piss people off are the ones that fall
into the "annoyance" category for all of the classes of users involved—mass-changes, pointless tracking bugs, cc-munging, etc, etc.
Posted by bzbarsky at November 5, 2003 12:51 AM