version-controlbug-trackingdailybuilds

Tools to help a small shop score higher on the "Joel Test"


Questions #1 through #4 on the Joel Test in my opinion are all about the development tools being used and the support system in place for developers:

  1. Do you use source control?
  2. Can you make a build in one step?
  3. Do you make daily builds?
  4. Do you have a bug database?

I'm just curious what free/cheap (but good) tools exist for the small development shops that don't have large bank accounts to use to achieve a positive answer on these questions.

For source control I know Subversion is a great solution, and if you are a one man shop you could even use SourceGear's Vault.

I use NAnt for my larger projects, but have yet to set up a script to build my installers as well as running the obfusication tools all as a single step. Any other suggestions?

If you can answer yes to the building in a single step, I think creating daily builds would be easy, but what tools would you recommend for automating those daily builds?

For a one or two man team, it's already been discussed on SO that you can use FogBugz On Demand, but what other bug tracking solutions exist for small teams?


Solution

    1. source control: Subversion or Mercurial or Git
    2. build automation: NAnt, MSBuild, Rake, Maven
    3. continuous integration: CruiseControl.NET or Continuum or Jenkins
    4. issue tracking: Trac, Bugzilla, Gemini (if it must be .NET and free-ish)

    Don't forget automated testing with NUnit, Fit, and WatiN.