A bug
tracking system or defect tracking system
It is a software application that keeps track of reported software bugs in software development projects. It may be regarded as a
type of system. Many bug tracking systems,
such as those used by most open sourse software projects, allow end-users to enter bug reports
directly. Other systems are used only internally in a company or
organization doing software development. Typically bug tracking systems are
integrated with other software project management applications. A bug tracking
system is usually a necessary component of a good software development infrastructure, and consistent use of a bug or issue tracking system is considered one of the "hallmarks
of a good software team".
A major component of a
bug tracking system is a database that records facts about known bugs. Facts may include the
time a bug was reported, its severity, the erroneous program behavior, and
details on how to reproduce the bug; as well as the identity of the person who
reported it and any programmers who may be working on fixing it. Typical bug
tracking systems support the concept of the life cycle for a bug which is tracked
through the status assigned to the bug. A bug tracking system should allow
administrators to configure permissions based on status, move the bug to
another status, or delete the bug. The system should also allow administrators
to configure the bug statuses and to what extent a bug in a particular status
can be moved. Some systems will e-mail interested parties, such as the
submitter and assigned programmers, when new records are added or the status
changes.
The main benefit of a
bug-tracking system is to provide a clear centralized overview of development
requests (including both bugs and improvements, the boundary is often fuzzy),
and their state. The prioritized list of pending items (often called backlog)
provides valuable input when defining the product road map, or maybe just
"the next release”. In a corporate environment, a bug-tracking system may
be used to generate reports on the productivity of programmers at fixing bugs.
However, this may sometimes yield inaccurate results because different bugs may
have different levels of severity and complexity. The severity of a bug may not
be directly related to the complexity of fixing the bug. There may be different
opinions among the managers and architects.
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