In my previous entry about bug-tracking, I solicited recommendations for new bug tracking software. I got a tidal wave of email, and updated that entry with a rough overview of the responses.
I think for now we are going to give Redmine a try. Here's my rationale:
It does a ton of stuff that's genuinely useful that we don't have now: attachments, svn integration, reporting, wikified documentation, time tracking, basic project management, and tons more.
The default appearance is pleasant and light. Navigation was completely clear to me -- I found everything right where I was expecting it.
We can run it locally. After a lot of internal debate, I decided I wasn't comfortable with a hosted solution, for privacy, availability, and cost reasons. Also, we can monkey with the code and database tables if it should become absolutely necessary.
Its bug schema is nearly 1:1 with our existing database, making for a pretty smooth import. I wrote a PHP script that moved everything over in one shot after the initial configuration process. If we should need to add a new field in the future, it's possible to do so.
It didn't barf or get laggy or unwieldy when I dumped all of our bugs into it. In fact, the whole time I was installing and configuring it, it never did anything weird, which is always a pleasant surprise with web apps.
It's written in Ruby on Rails, which I desperately need to get more familiar with. I'm hoping I can study the code and use that knowledge to make future versions of Coda better for Rails developers.
It's free.
So, for everyone who asked me to update when we picked something, there you go. :)
Overall, I'm actually kind of stunned at how good it seems to be. I had no idea it even existed, so I'm very grateful to those who emailed me about it. I'm sure all of the other suggestions are good too, but based on my research, I think this is the best match for us right now.
There's always a chance that we could back out, if something bad happens in the next day or two, but so far there haven't been any "bad smells" suggestive of that. Will keep you posted if that happens, obviously.