Any recommendations for bug tracking software?

[DodgyAgent]

A bright idea

Thanks zeity. Maybe CUK should have a subscription only facility for agencies who wish to ask technical questions, I cannot tell you how helpful this would be.

[Jabberwocky]

Splendid idea - I can work on fee per question DA or on a day rate for more in depth advice - please message me and I will give you a quote.

[VectraMan]

I am not technical, but reading your posts has given me some insight into testing and Quality management. I am going to see a client tomorrow who has a problem finding programmers who will fix bugs. They want people who have C C++ and a grounding in low level languages such as Assembler. Why do they not offshore the work to India? why is it difficult to find bug fixing programmers? and why do they want people with such strong skills?

help appreciated

I actually thought about trying to sell myself as a bit of a bug fixing specialist, because delving into other people's code is something I'm good at and don't mind doing (up to a point). The problem is it's a bit hard to quantify, it's pretty much impossible to know how long something is going to take which means the traditional fixed term contract doesn't really fit, and you don't get a MSC-whatever to say that you're good at bug fixing. The other worry is that I'd get pushed towards testing roles, and I really don't want to be doing testing.

Oh and I can do C, C++ and assembler.

Fixing a bug, without just putting bodge code in place, often requires quite a lot of refactoring and sometimes attending to design flaws in the system.

That's often the case, but just as often bugs are silly mistakes or things that are obviously wrong when you find them. I spent nearly a week working on a bug for my last client that turned out to be a 2 instead of a 1, and it was completely clear that it needed to be a 1. In my experience, whilst there are the fundamental design flaws, programmers usually do a better job on making sure the big things work and it's usually the little things that get missed.

[OrangeHopper]

Good fixers have the ability to grasp the big picture - what is it trying to do, how is it trying to do it - so they can quickly focus in on the likely source of the problem while having the necessary coding skills and experience to actually fix it. Not everyone has this mix or the experience.