ditz

== ditz

by William Morgan

http://ditz.rubyforge.org

== DESCRIPTION

Ditz is a simple, light-weight distributed issue tracker designed to work with distributed version control systems like git, darcs, Mercurial, and Bazaar. It can also be used with centralized systems like SVN.

Ditz maintains an issue database directory on disk, with files written in a line-based and human-editable format. This directory can be kept under version control, alongside project code.

Ditz provides a simple, console-based interface for creating and updating the issue database files, and some basic static HTML generation capabilities for producing world-readable status pages (for a demo, see the ditz ditz page).

Ditz includes a robust plugin system for adding commands, model fields, and modifying output. See PLUGINS.txt for documentation on the pre-shipped plugins.

Ditz currently offers no central public method of bug submission.

== USING DITZ

There are several different ways to use Ditz:

1. Treat issue change the same as code change: include it as part of commits, and merge it with changes from other developers, resolving conflicts in the usual manner.
2. Keep the issue database in the repository but in a separate branch. Issue changes can be managed by your VCS, but is not tied directly to code commits.
3. Keep the issue database separate and not under VCS at all.

All of these options are supported; the choice of which to use depends on your workflow.

Option #1 is probably most appropriate for the unsynchronized, distributed development, since it allows individual developers to modify issue state with a minimum of hassle. Option #2 is most suitable for synchronized development, as issue state change can be transmitted independently of code change (see also the git-sync plugin) and can act as a sychronization mechanism. Option #3 is only useful with some other distribution mechanism, like a central web interface.

== COMMANDLINE SYNOPSIS

set up project. creates the bugs.yaml file.

1. ditz init
2. ditz add-release

add an issue

1. ditz add

where am i?

1. ditz status
2. ditz todo (or simply "ditz")

do work

1. write code
2. ditz close
3. commit
4. goto 3

finished!

1. ditz release

== THE DITZ DATA MODEL

By default, Ditz includes the bare minimum set of features necessary for open-source development. Features like time spent, priority, assignment of tasks to developers, due dates, etc. are purposely relegated to the plugin system.

A Ditz project consists of issues, releases and components.

Issues: Issues are the fundamental currency of issue tracking. A Ditz issue is either a feature or a bug, but this distinction currently doesn't affect anything other than how they're displayed.

Each issue belongs to exactly one component, and is part of zero or one releases.

Each issues has an exportable id, in the form of 40 random hex characters. This id is "guaranteed" to be unique across all possible issues and developers, present and future. Issue ids are typically not exposed to the user.

Issues also have a non-global, non-exportable name, which is short and human-readable. All Ditz commands use issue names in addition to issue ids. Issue names (but not issue ids) may change in certain circumstances, e.g. after a "ditz drop" command.

Issue names can be specified in comments, titles and descriptions, and Ditz will automatically rewrite them as necessary when they change.

Components: There is always one "general" component, named after the project itself. In the simplest case, this is the only component, and the user is never bothered with the question of which component to assign an issue to.

Components simply provide a way of organizing issues, and have no real functionality. Issues names are derived from the component they're assigned to.

Releases: A release is the primary grouping mechanism for issues. Status commands like "ditz status" and "ditz todo" always group issues by release. When a release is 100% complete, it can be marked as released, and its issues will cease appearing in Ditz status and todo messages.

== LEARNING MORE

• ditz help
• find $DITZ_INSTALL_DIR -type f | xargs cat

== REQUIREMENTS

• trollop >= 1.8.2, if running via RubyGems.

== INSTALLATION

Download tarballs from http://rubyforge.org/projects/ditz/, or command your computer to "gem install ditz".

== LICENSE

Copyright (c) 2008 William Morgan.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.