Hmm, new blog, where to start, where to start… Oh, I know, I’ll just pull this old horse carcass out of the bin and….
There are lots of good reasons to not like Joel Spolsky’s take on web bug management tools, and while the above screenshot is not entirely valid, other good reasons do exist:
- If you add one user/seat over your paid limit, it (until you delete a user or buy more user licenses) disables every user. It even logs users out, and then taunts them with a message to buy more licenses when the user tries to log in again. Real friendly like.
- Not one free test case tool works with FogBugz beyond linking to the bugs. Obviously there are significant barriers to them doing so, but seeing as many of them work with Bugzilla, we can count this against FogBugz.
- While the screenshot tool depicted failing above is good when it works, when it doesn’t, it fails miserably and distracts you from the task at hand – reporting bugs with your defect tracking softare. I’ve had it display the login page for FogBugz (with the latest version) numerous times.
- (This is wrong, see the comments, thanks for the correction) At least with open-source software I can have a chance at fixing the bugs myself.
- You’re not in control of the software at all. They recently launched their major upgrade with a movie depicting how awesomely web 2.0 they are. Great guys, you’ve got ajax and a few usability improvements, did this really neccessitate a major number increase?
- Go search for “bugzilla” on Google. Go on, I’ll wait…
- Okay, back with me? Note the ad if you don’t have customize google installed. Yeah, FogBugz is advertising on Google AdWords with anti-Bugzilla propaganda. Real professional.
- To add something to a case it takes two clicks. You have to click on a bug, and then click again to edit.
Excuse my ignorance, but what’s a test case tool?
So what’s the difference between a test case tool and a bug tracker?
A bug tracker specifically handles the cases of errors brought before it in a meaningful way. It is better than e-mail for tracking errors due to the fact that all participants can generally see all of the communication involved. Sometimes some of the information will be hidden so the bug fixers can’t call
I probably should have been more specific when I mentioned test case tools, a bug tracker can be considered one, much like how a square can be considered a rectangle as well. Though bug/defect trackers are only part of the process, test cases themselves are usually stored in another program. Like test case web.
TestDirector or ClearQuest work well for both tasks, if your development team wants to front the costs as they can get expensive.
I’ll have to try those out, thanks for the suggestions
Thanks for reminding us where we need to improve. One point, though:
“At least with open-source software I can have a chance at fixing the bugs myself.”
If you buy FogBugz, you do get the source code so you can modify your own install. More stuff about that here. And please do email us or blog again if you have more suggestions/complaints or even praise!