[chx]

> Was the user mistaken?

99999 out of 100000 yes. Sorry but most bug reports, even from QA departments are noise at best, nuisance at worst. And as I posted here before: I am close 40, have 15 years experience as a professional in this industry, I have seen it all and yes it gets harder for you to break through to me because I will presume you have no clue what you are doing because so many before you didn't. Sorry if you are the one special snowflake.

This is not to say my software is bug free, of course not! But unless you can describe the steps you made clearly and also have an expectation/happened instead , your bug report is useless. Again, this doesn't mean I expect reproducable bug reports but I need something solid to work with.

[eropple]

Your experience certainly doesn't match my experience; I've worked with brilliant QA people who were able to diagnose problems both when deviating from spec and when performance is a feature that isn't being properly met. And when someone has not been up to snuff, in almost every case I've been able to teach the people you arrogantly dismiss as "noise" and make them better able to help us all create better things through that education.

Your attitude, however, does match my experience: it is why people think software people are assholes. So be more mindful, please, from up there on your high, high horse. For yourself and for us as a profession and a craft.

[mak4athp]

Deciphering bad bug reports is absolutely a waste of your time as a developer, but that doesn't imply that the user is mistaken. In nearly all cases, the user is correct in sensing a bug but incorrect or inarticulate in their description of it.

It's almost always a good idea to understand what's behind the report. It's just that somebody in a different role should be doing most of that work.

[Jemaclus]

Small startups are often just a handful of people, and devs can and do pull double-duty as QA and development, and sometimes customer support for engineering issues! Freelancers also don't have customer support teams. For larger orgs, however, you're right. And also, like I said in another comment, the "customer" doesn't have to be your customer -- your "customer" could be the QA guy who says he found a bug, or your boss, or another engineer. Whoever tells you they found a bug, you should not dismiss their report with "well, it works for me."

[URSpider94]

That's what CS engineers and test engineers are for!

[m_mueller]

> 99999 out of 100000 yes

If there's one thing I can't stand then it's people spewing fantasy numbers out of their ass without anything to back them up in order to give their argument some conjured up weight. You may well be right that a majority of bug reports are unhelpful, but please, if you need to use numbers, use ones you can back up with something.