Programming .NET Windows Applications

Bug Database: A Windows Application

In our earlier book, Programming ASP.NET, we created a web-based bug-tracking application. ADO.NET does such a good job of abstracting the data from the implementing technology that much of the design of that application can easily be ported to Windows programming; recreating the bug tracking database as a rich-client desktop application.

Tip

You do not have to have read Programming ASP.NET to follow this discussion, though if you have read it, many of its design considerations will be familiar.

To build an application to track software bugs, you'll need a form for entering bugs and a form for reviewing and editing bugs. To support this, you will design a relational database to hold the data about each bug. ADO.NET supports any database technology that has an ODBC driver (Access, Oracle, etc.), but this book focuses on SQL Server because many ADO.NET classes are optimized for Microsoft's chosen database technology.

Preliminary Design Considerations

Begin by thinking about the kinds of information you want to capture in the database and how that information will be used. You will allow any user of the system to create a bug report. You'll also want certain users (e.g., developers and a quality assurance team) to be able to update bug reports. Developers will want to be able to record progress in fixing a bug or to mark a bug as fixed. QA will want to check the fix and either close the bug or reopen it for further investigation. The original reporter ...