I'd say Excel is superior to those systems for any one-person project. Especially monsters like Bugzilla, which shine for huge projects but impose a lot of overhead on tiny projects.
The trick with Excel is knowing when you've crossed that inflection point where you need something better. Unfortunately most people can't see that inflection since they only know Excel. And for others, it might be hard to transition away because they have all of their data in Excel.
I just choked on my soda. Bugzilla packages install in a command line and you can be up and running with a product, a couple of components for categorization, and user accounts 15 minutes later.
The only time I don't take that 15 minutes is if I'm working on a project where I'll NEVER be working directly with anyone else. Even then, it's often nice "just in case" someone else comes along later and wants to collaborate, you need to keep up with issues fixed in various releases, etc.
In particular, any piece of software that needs an MTA in order to run is not going to be pleasant when you are running a one-person project. What, are you going to want to receive email updates from yourself whenever you update a bug that you created on the computer you are using right now?
I wasn't even talking about installation, however. Go to the Landfill if you don't believe me (http://landfill.bugzilla.org/). You want to create a new bug? You first have to create a product, then you have to create components. You have to fill out the entire form when filing a bug, even if you only have one product, one component, and only target one operating system.
Then think about the cost of running Bugzilla. You are now running a web server. What if you don't have a server? What if you just have a laptop for the road and a desktop at home? How are you going to do database backups?
Tell me: does this beat an Excel spreadsheet for a one-person project?
Edit: I'm not saying Bugzilla is bad software. I'm saying it's like a stick shift. If you put an automatic transmission in a car, you alienate users who prefer manual. If you put a manual transmission in a car, you alienate users who don't know how to use it.
any piece of software that needs an MTA in order to run
What distro doesn't already have an MTA installed?
Create product: Click the "new product" link then type in "My New Software Project" enter.
Create components: Under your new product, click the "new component" linke then type in "Miscellaneous", press enter. There, you have your product and a catch-all component for all your new issues. Divide into more meaningful components as time goes on.
What if you don't have a server?
Now I see the misunderstanding here. I was referring to professional software projects where I've had to work with other people, some of whom here and there wished to track bugs in spreadsheets. Any such project that I work on has at least one server available. Hell, for small consulting projects I just use one of the servers running in my house to bootstrap things.
You know, you can get a RaspberryPi and plenty of flash storage space for running as a server (with Bugzilla, an MTA, and everything) for projects for less than $50.
If you're referring to small personal projects then sure. Use a text file or a spreadsheet or strings tied to your fingers to remind you of things.
> I'd say Excel is superior to those systems for any one-person project.
> I was referring to professional software projects where I've had to work with other people
We're having different discussions. It happens. I was pretty careful about choice of words: I said "tiny" and "one-person" rather than "small". For a "small" project I'd use Bugzilla or Trac or whatever makes the grass greener with the least fertilizer.
Not every developer wants to be a sysadmin. Some developers are hobbyists with a single Windows machine—for those developers, Bugzilla administration might be an arduous task which requires skills they don't want to waste graymatter on.
> Bugzilla is dependent on the availability of an e-mail system for its user authentication and for other tasks.
> This is not entirely true. It is possible to completely disable email sending, or to have Bugzilla store email messages in a file instead of sending them. However, this is mainly intended for testing, as disabling or diverting email on a production machine would mean that users could miss important events (such as bug changes or the creation of new accounts).
