Automated bug tracking: the promise and the pitfalls

Bug tacking systems give developers a unique and clear view into user's everyday product experiences. Adding some statistical analysis and software teams can efficiently improve product quality. It's hard to tell precisely how well the error reporting system working, but this seems to be a bug weapon that has landed a permanent spot in microsoft's arsenal. Automated bug tracking, combined with statistical reporting, plays a key role for developers at the Mozilla Foundations, best known for its open source Web browser and email software. The sparse, random sampling approach produces enough data for the team to do what it call "statistical debugging"-bug detection through statistical analysis.