[thackerhacker]

OP here. In case people are wondering what the new approach is, Errordite allows you to look at your list of errors and by highlighting properties of the error define the rules by which errors are grouped into issues. See the video for a demo.

[StavrosK]

Hmm, I don't understand how this is different from BugSense or Sentry? Don't they already group errors together too?

[thackerhacker]

Yup but only automatially. Our matching default to automatic but you can redefine the matching rules.

Examples:

1. your exception messages contain the id of the entity you're dealing with "FooBar 1234 has broken". You only want to match then on the FooBar has broken bit, not the 1234.

2. for whatever reason, some IP address keeps sending you dodgy requests that break your server. You can filter all errors requests from this IP address so you don't get swamped with these errors.

3. The same bug deep down in your code is causing different errors higher up. You can choose to match on the part of your stack trace that is the common cause and get all these errors attached to the same issue.

[StavrosK]

Ah, I see, thanks. I guess I just haven't had trouble with this in all my years working on web development, it's always the same error (the error doesn't vary on ids), if an IP address keeps sending me things that break my server, I fix my server, and if the same bug is causing different errors, I'll fix it quickly.

I guess #3 is the only example that might apply to me, but I have literally never had this happen, so I don't know. Then again, I don't even use Sentry, I get the issues emailed to me and I fix them on the spot (they're usually 1-line fixes, typos, or something like that).

[thackerhacker]

Yep - if you're totally organised and completely on top of your app, then there may be little need for a service like this (although I'd say there's still value in the graphs, the multiple alerting channels and all the other good stuff).

We developed Errordite as a result of working on large(ish) eCommerce websites where the wide variety of errors produced made it impossible to understand exactly the different things that could be going wrong - and I think for this kind of thing, where you are not going to always be on top of your errors, Errordite is invaluable.

[StavrosK]

Ah, I see, thanks for the explanation. I imagine that if you're using someone else's codebase, you'd be in a much worse position to fix bugs immediately, I hadn't considered that.