Managing BugsProbably the most common source of bugs comes from copying code from one place and pasting it into another. Another common source is copying a variable into a block that's out of scope for that variable. Regardless of how you introduced an error, managing these problems is important. Because this project takes two to four months to complete, tracking bugs improves the quality of the resulting code. If the timeframe was shorter, tracking bugs wouldn't be worth the trouble. If you are writing code at work, you might use your employer's bug tracker. If you're doing it at home, you can use one of the many free bug-tracking utilities. For example, you can use Bugzilla, which is a database for bugs and is currently being used for the Mozilla browser project. You can download Bugzilla (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bugzilla/) to set up on your own computer. Another example is Geodesic Systems (http://www.geodesic.com/); its product line specializes in Java application bug tracking. Whatever your choice, using an effective bug-tracking process is helpful; I recommend a commercial-grade product for this important role in software development.
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