I went a bit off the roadmap tonight. While I meant to be finalizing the modules for release, I ended up coding something I had meant to leave for a future release: An error handling system.
You can choose to display any possible PHP error messages "raw" (as they are generally output) or hidden and buffered into a popup with different levels of detail and options for admin and regular members. You can also choose to hide the general report from regular members.
Error handling is also connected with the database — every MySQL and PHP error is logged into the database error logs, along with necessary background data for debugging, available for browsing from the Admin CP.
The administrators also have an "instant bug report" button in the ACP for forwarding the error messages with the necessary debugging background data directly to us for analysis and action. The more reports we get, the better we can pinpoint and resolve problems --- so here's to near-automatic bug reporting.
You can also use the error logs for screening your site for suspicious activity and possible attempts at vulnerability screening or exploiting, for monitoring the stability of the changes you make, for tracking the quality of third-party add-ons you and your community are testing, and so on.
Not as fancy as some of the error handlers out there, as the main point is just to be able to capture the error data and get it in for analysis, but it should do the trick!
I'm hoping this feature addition will bring us many steps forward in working towards the utopian day of a zero-bug product. *enterbughuntmode*
