As practice shows, it is impossible to develop error-free software. All people make mistakes, so do the programmers, despite their experience, skills and abilities. Moreover, there is no guarantee that even a high quality application will perform its functions correctly for definite period of time. It also happens, that after testing a software program starts behaving in unexpected or unacceptable way. Why such problem arises?
The question is that programmers work with different software programs and some of them are written by other programmers. At that, in this case, this is not about application compatibility with a particular operating system or hardware resources.
Personnel of quality assurance company have fallen into the habit of using a bug tracking system when verifying the performance of software products. This is an automated tool which facilitates testing process and helps software developers (programmers, testers, and qa analysts) file details of all reported bugs in software programs and keep track of the status of every bug.
Bug tracking system is a software app which accelerates development process and manages critical defects and issues. There are many types of such utilities according to taste and demands. All of them pursue the same goal but present different interfaces and provide different functionality. They can be suited for either a large team or sole developer. The choice of bug tracking tool depends on testing needs and customer requirements.
In general, it is common for providers of Independent testing services to use popular software applications among which are
- Bugzilla
- Mantis
- Redmayne (Redmine)
- Trac. Bugzilla
As far as Trac. Bugzilla is concerned; it can provide effective communication between the stakeholders and the development team. This is one of the most popular bug trackers which is used even by dedicated tester in many large projects (Linux, Nasa, Apache, etc.).
What are the benefits of Bugzilla?
- A huge variety of bug report formats
- All reports submitted can be listed
- Easy monitoring of the time spent on a particular task
- Possibility to setup field configuration schemes
- Applications as well as comments can be added privately
This is not a complete list of Bugzilla’s features. But it is very important for every bug tracker to be easy to use, convenient and customizable.
Only in this case, installation testing, performance testing, load testing, and any other type of software testing type can appear to be efficient and effective.
