Defect Tracking, Change, and Configuration Management
Perforce SCM 2005
Perforce Software (www.perforce.com)
Perforce's Christopher Seiwald & Nigel Chanter
In the configuration management world, Perforce has a reputation for reliability, scalability, and speed. It manages hundreds of thousands of modules, supports thousands of developers, and delivers quick responses to every user. And it is easy to get started. Anyone can download a fully functional version of the software and evaluate it with two developers.
While Perforce SCM's strength is its simplicity and robustness, the tool continues to improve with a new release every few months. In the last year, performance has been improved (again!), output has been tagged for easier scripting, and hooks to external authentication have been added. These are just a few of the new features. While these individual features may not be huge, the overall effect over the last few years has jolted the industry.
Perforce has become the workhorse of many small and large development shops.
—Hugh Bawtree
Productivity Award Winners
FogBugz 4.0
Fog Creek Software (www.fogcreek.com)
FogBugz 4.0 delivers what every developer wants: A simple to use bug-tracking tool. While the core feature set is no-frills bug tracking, features such as a screenshot tool and embedding automatic bug submission into existing applications makes it easier for users to submit informative bug reports. If you do not require sophisticated project management or issue-tracking facilities, consider this tool.
—Mik Kersten
Guiffy SureMerge 7.0
Guiffy Software (www.guiffy.com)
Guiffy Software's SureMerge uses an advanced set of three-way merge algorithms to detect potentially dangerous conflicts other tools might miss. Guiffy's web site contains test-case kits you can download and run with other tools. It also doesn't hurt that the UI is smooth, fast, and stays out of your way, or that it includes a command-line interface so that you can hook the tool to just about any SCM utility.
—Rick Wayne
JIRA 3.4
Atlassian Software (www.atlassian.com)
JIRA 3.4 is a full-featured issue tracker and reporter with a clean web-based UI and powerful facilities for editing and managing queries in a straightforward lightweight way that doesn't impose processes. If you're considering moving to a new issue tracker that doesn't require heavyweight project-tracking facilities, put this tool on your list.
—Mik Kersten
