Development tools fantasy #1

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the trac project, it’s that integrating version control with bug-tracking is a recipe for awesome. My better world fantasy for today involves taking this concept a bit further: bugs should be linked right back to files in your repository.

As soon as a bug can be traced to a file, your bug-tracker should let you mark the file, or even the specific line where the bug can be found. This provides other developers a great head-start on where to look if they want to take the problem on, or a good reminder for yourself when you come back to work on it.

Improving communication is always a good thing, but the fun doesn’t stop there. When you check-in a change to a file you’re working on, the version control system checks the bug-tracker to see if there are any bugs that your changeset touches. These are now presented to you so you know what bugs you’re potentially dealing with, and you can ignore or update each one in turn.

By adding bug location awareness to your version control system, your database can be more up-to-date and your developers more cognizant of what’s going on with the entire project.