It's a fact: all software has bugs. All software professionals need to track bugs, defects, and issues in their software. Defect tracking software can be expensive or inflexible or both. Phemisters Software have today released PhDT, a new, flexible, cross-platform software package to make defect tracking easy and affordable.
Livingston, Scotland (PRWEB) March 10, 2006 –- Phemisters Software have today announced the release of version 0.6 of PhDT, their flagship application. PhDT allows software engineers and anyone who needs to track issues or defects (or bugs) to create a flexible tool tailored to their needs. PhDT's simple and low cost licensing model makes it ideal for small to medium sized businesses or individuals who need to track problems.
There are many defect tracking applications on the market. These vary from being free to being very expensive, sometimes costing in excess of $700 for one license. They also vary from being flexible to limited to predefined fields and are often very hard to configure. “We realised that there was a market for a low cost but flexible solution to defect tracking,” said David Smith, a developer at Phemisters Software. “When we set out to create an application to fill this need, we were very aware that software engineers want cross-platform and configurable software,” he continued, “and so we developed PhDT using Sun's Java language.”
Of paramount importance was the flexibility of PhDT which installs with a limited set of required fields. “The power of the program is the ability of the administrator to create a set of fields tailored to their own problem area” said Dudley Phemister, Phemisters Software design engineer. “Fields can be created and arranged to suit the user's needs from a set of types including lists, checkboxes, text, numeric, file attachments, and so on,” he continued, “and I don't think there is any other package with the same flexibility for this price.” PhDT comes with a simple licensing model of floating licenses, with a ten user license costing around £150 ($300).
PhDT has three component parts: a server, an administration program, and a client program. A typical installation will consist of one server, one or two administration installations, and multiple client installations. All of these applications will run on any computer for which there is a Java 1.5 runtime. This means PhDT will run on Microsoft Windows (Windows 98 upwards), Apple Mac OS X, Sun Solaris, and GNU/Linux.
PhDT has a rich set of features including rules, actions, filters, saved searches, reading defects via email, and sending emails to users. Feature lists and screen shots are available from the company's web site, see http://www.phemisters.co.uk/PhDT/phdt-screenshots.html [PhDT screen shots and features].
For ease of use PhDT will install with an in-process version of the free HSQLDB database. “HSQLDB is an excellent choice for PhDT as it is 100% Java which maintains our cross-platform objective”, David Smith explained. For maximum flexibility and performance PhDT can be configured to use other SQL-compliant databases, for instance the well know PostgreSQL database.
For additional information on PhDT (or for a demo copy), contact Phemisters or visit http://www.phemisters.co.uk/PhDT/phdt-beta.html [PhDT defect tracking demo].
Phemisters, Phemisters Software, and PhDT are trademarks of Phemisters Software. Java and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. HSQLDB database is copyright The HSQL Development Group. PostgreSQL is copyright the PostgreSQL Global Development Group. Microsoft Windows is copyright Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.
About Phemisters Software:
Phemisters Software is a new company specialising in the development of software tools. Based in Scotland the company also supplies IT support, web site design, and bespoke software in the West Lothian area.
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