Indeed in the software development domain, it is impossible to produce ‘perfect’ applications all the time. From small issues with the look and feel of the application, to catastrophic failures in the application’s functional architecture, bugs can’t be avoided. However, care has to be taken to meet the developmental and testing needs thereby standardizing the bugs recorded and that this often makes the difference between a more rigorous developmental process and a refined one. It is equally important to have a good definition of bug tracking and the reasons why each development team must have a proper system in place to track defects if you want to build high-quality software.
In this article, we will seek to understand what bug tracking entails, the value that a bug tracking system brings to the table and how the implementation of a powerful bug tracking system can transform the performance profile of development projects.
What Is Bug Tracking?
Bug tracking is the act of detecting, reporting, recording and controlling any forms of defects in a particular software development project. A “bug” is defined as a random defect in a computer program or any unforeseen operational problem which hinders the normal flow of its operation. There are two types of bug tracking systems: web-based and desktop-based, and they are the only specific tools that can be used by developers for such purposes in the course of the project implementation.
The main goals of bug tracking are to:
Document bugs systematically.
Hand out and schedule bug fixes.
Track every bug from the point of identification to that of closure.
Always establish honest employee responsibly within the cordial and effective organizational circuit.
Regardless of whether you implemented a simple application or work with an extensive system in an enterprise, the bug tracking function is required to keep the code clean and satisfy the users.
Why Bug Tracking Is Essential for Development Teams
1. Centralized Bug Management
The bug tracking system is required by development teams for one primary need – that is, centralization. If there is no structure, tracking bugs may be rather a problem, especially in large systems for a number of developers. Bug tracking makes it possible to maintain a single repository for bugs that is where all bugs are reported, documented, and tracked.
Why it Matters:
With each member of the team having a view of the same bug tracking system all bugs cannot be reported multiple times, bug priority can be address aptly and bugs that have been reported do not get lost in the system. This makes a project to run effectively and also makes all the people involved to be aware of what others are doing.
2. Prioritization of Bugs
I know today most bugs are not the same, but they are all bugs in my eyes. Some are mere cosmetic glitches and others can entirely null a feature in an application or a game. Most of the bug tracking systems give an opportunity to categorize or prioritize the bugs as they are bad, serious, high impact or urgent.
Why it Matters:
Hence, it is possible to stress that an appropriate prioritization of bugs helps in prioritizing the work of the development team for the factor of criticality. For instance, it would be reasonable to address abrupt crash that is evidently a inconvenience for the majority of users in contrast to a graphic failure that bothers only some of the users. It aids in the matching of resources to needs and prioritization so that as many important bugs as possible will be fixed.
3. Improved Accountability and Communication
One more important characteristic of bug tracking systems is in their ability to assign bugs to certain team members. This also establishes responsibility as for one, every developer will be fully aware of which of those bugs he or she needs to work on. It also aids in getting the levels of communication among the developers, testers, and stakeholders to be improved.
Why it Matters:
The possession reduces confusion as well as guarantee that bugs are properly fixed. In the same manner, bug tracking systems afford submitters to add remarks, modifications or annexes to a bug in order that each team member may obtain information on advancement or problems. This is particularly useful for the teams which are decentralized and operate on different time zones.
4. Tracking the Bug Lifecycle
These bug tracking applications give the full coverage of various phases of a bug. The moment a bug is reported right through to its resolution is captured in this process, the traceability of a bug. This entails the time the bug was reported, by whom, working on it, the bug’s status and any updates if any.
Why it Matters:
The bug lifecycle helps in tracking how long an issue has been handled, where in the process an issue has gotten stuck, or even how far the team has progressed. This data can be used in enhancing the flow of operations, evaluating the performance of a team and even predicting the best time to undertake other similar projects.
5. Facilitating Continuous Improvement
When it comes to bug tracking, software can not only be debugged when it clearly shows some problems, it is a process of constant enhancement. From the bug reports, patterns that are developed will help the team to realize certain recurring problems or areas of code that have many problems or areas in the software that were not adequately tested.
Why it Matters:
The data collected during the bug tracking can be used by the teams to make changes in the development process that was previously done, this may include; improving the code review procedures, testing or future feature development. This means that there is always room for learning within the project, thus, making each iteration of the project more efficient, free from bugs, etc.
6. Integration with Development Tools
Still, today, bug tracking systems can be easily implemented as a part of other development tools as, for example, version control systems, project management tools, or CI/CD pipelines. This makes it easier for the developers to trace the bugs against the commit made by them then trace the progress of the issues within the sprints and change the status of the bugs in line with the new build set.
Why it Matters:
The integration saves efforts and time in repetition of similar work at various physical locations which in turn enhances the efficiency of the development process. To a great extent, developers are able to find origin of a bug to the appropriate code change to guide the prevention in future. Jira, GitHub Issues, Trello and other are efficient tools that allow the management of bug reports combined the environment used to monitor development tasks.
7. Ensuring Customer Satisfaction
Therefore the objective of bug tracking is to be able to provide a software product that is as free as possible from defects and conforms to the requirements and expectation of the users. This shows that each open bug or missed concern may cause customers’ disappointment, critical remarks or even rejection of services or products. Mainly, the use of a good working bug tracking system can help development teams to be aware of problems and to reply to users’ feedback.
Why it Matters:
Providing a product that will function effectively and without glitches is a way to gain confidence from the users. Because most bugs are discovered during the testing stage, successful and immediate handling of bugs makes it possible for development teams to improve the satisfaction of customers and indirectly help gain good reputation which is a key factor for any software product.
First, let define what bug tracking tools are and why do they seems to be popular among development teams.
Now that we understand what bug tracking is and its importance, let’s take a look at some of the popular bug tracking tools used by development teams:Now that we understand what bug tracking is and its importance, let’s take a look at some of the popular bug tracking tools used by development teams:
Jira: A strong project managing software that also includes essential and efficient bugs tracking utilities. As the project management tool, Jira is as highly customizable as it can be and interacts with many development tools.
Bugzilla: An open source bug tracking tool which is highly regarded due to it’s simplicity and high reliability. It provides easy to use interface to control and manage the bugs effectively.
Trello: Even though the main purpose of Trello is project management, it is possible to use it for bug tracking with the help of boards and cards configurations.
GitHub Issues: GitHub Issues is widely used for open-source projects, it is tightly connected with the repositories and, therefore, enables tracking bugs with the code updates.
Redmine: The second tool is Redmine which is also an open-source software that integrates bug and issue tracking and project management.
Conclusion
Regardless the size of the software development team or scope of the work, efficient bug tracking system is an essential element of the team’s productivity and software’s quality. It is important to know what bug tracking is, and having a system that is properly put in place makes it easy to document the bugs, categorize them and explore ways and means to resolve them, as well as making everyone aware of his/her responsibilities towards bug tracking.
This way, with the help of efficient bug tracking tools, software development teams can overcome most challenges linked with this difficult process and create products that will be on or above the consumer’s expectations level. Thus, no matter whether you are a single coder or a representative of a big company, to achieve ultimate success and success in your and your team’s projects, it is vital to implement the right bug tracking system.
tags:
Top comments (0)