Rands: good point about developers hating criticism. I kind of missed the obvious there. It's far more comfortable to curse the tracking system, or the person who raised the bug, than one's own code.

This is an interesting question, though. Most bug tracking systems impose a layer of impersonal-ness between users and the coders. Issues that could be easily clarified with a five minute chat can end up dragging on for days in a game of fixed/test failed ping-pong. It's the same layer of insulation that you get when you use email instead of picking up the phone, or walking down the hall to speak to someone in person; or when you get behind the wheel of your car. It's easier to be angry with someone when you're not dealing with them in real-time or FTF.

Although bug reporting systems might be a good way for *tracking* bugs, might this mean that they're not necessarily the best way to actually get bugs *fixed*?