Bug trackers are great. Keeping track of lots of little niggly things is tedious and hard to do even if you have pink post-it notes, which I do. But for a software development team there is no subsitute for a decent bug tracker [1].

That’s why I’m trying out Mantis for size. So far I’ve installed it and had an initial play and so far I’m impressed. Its got everything I’d expect and then some more, next I shall feed it some data and have a proper play. Its less slick than other products on the market (Eventum springs immediately to mind) but on the other hand it takes seven minutes to go from “I quite fancy a shot with mantis” to “cool status colours on the overview list” which is good.

Mantis is also temping as it integrates (or can with some help) with both subversion and dokuwiki. I’ll be having a shot at getting these all talking soon, and I’ll let you know how I get on.

¹ So why have I come across so many teams that don’t use one? I have no idea, maybe you know.