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This acquisition doesn't fill me with confidence for the future. StatusPage was a clean, simple, and intuitive service. Atlasssian's software is the opposite of

This acquisition doesn't fill me with confidence for the future. StatusPage was a clean, simple, and intuitive service. Atlasssian's software is the opposite of clean, simple, and intuitive.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
When I saw the quote by the StatusPage founders saying they were aligned with Atlassian, I laughed. These companies are near polar opposites.
r0m4n0 10y ago
Having used many different bug tracking, help desk, and ticketing softwares… Atlassian does a dam good job. Totally customizable screens, fields, and workflows with a modern UI. A decent webservice API I’ve integrated a few external tools into without much difficulty. I’ve also written a few gadgets and plugins and received a decent amount of attention through their plugin marketplace. Maybe the admin that setup your install or business workflow did a bad job? I don’t think you say the same about other competitors right now… ServiceNow? HP SMS or ALM? ClearQuest? I’ve used those and if you consider Atlassian terrible, I’m not sure what words you would use to describe them…
- lojack 10y ago
  > Maybe the admin that setup your install or business workflow did a bad job? I think this is key. There's so much customization allowed that its easy to get wrong. Your experiences can vary drastically between a well configured instance and a poorly configured one.
  - gregmac 10y ago
    I'll also add it's not always obviously wrong when it's setup. For example, of course only QA people can use "Testing passed" transition. Of course there should be x, y, z fields filled out to be able to create the ticket. Well we're at it, let's make sure only the product manager can close a ticket with 'wontfix', and only the release manager can change a fixversion. This is a really common problem with any workflow tool, where well-intentioned control points get in the way of actually Getting Things Done, both from the perspective of not thinking through all the complex scenarios (what? I have to fill out 5 fields before I can close this as a duplicate??) and from not trusting your employees (don't worry, a jr. dev is not going to re-assign a fix version even though they can -- or at least, they won't do it twice).
    - ymerej 10y ago
      For you, there is Github issues. Have fun, cowboy.
      - nilkn 10y ago
        More seriously, there's FogBugz, which intentionally is not very customizable to avoid the issues the above poster was referring to. In my experience, FogBugz is a little too limited, so I do prefer Jira, but only when used by competent people who understand that the customization should not get in the way of getting things done and it should not be used to institutionalize a lack of trust in employees.
      - voltagex_ 10y ago
        Having used HP Quality Centre, JIRA and Team Foundation, I think your snark is unwarranted and there is a middle ground to be found between very basic issue tracking and something completely overbearing like QC.
        glogla 10y ago
        It's been years and HPQC still gives me nightmares.
  - manyxcxi 10y ago
    I think another thing people get wrong is before even using it they assume they've got to dive into a ton of custom workflows. I've had some fairly large teams able to use JIRA without a single workflow customization (especially with Agile). We've added custom fields and such along the way for better reporting and such but there is definitely some mileage you can get out of the box with it.
  - jjcm 10y ago
    That's one of the reasons why we're switching to a cloud model in addition to the self-hosted server model. Some people wanted an easier more straight forward experience.
- clappski 10y ago
  We use ServiceNow at work, and it's absolutely horrible. Introduces so much red tape even to do simple things like become an administrator on a virtual machine requested against your account .
  - fnord123 10y ago
    How do companies end up with the Service Now cancer? Are their sales meetings just hooker and coke parties? I've used it at two different companies and I wondered how anyone could look at it and think 'ok let's buy into this pile of horse shit'. My cat could do a better job.
    - stuff4ben 10y ago
      You obviously haven't seen Remedy.
fletchowns 10y ago
I use JIRA, Confluence, and BitBucket daily and I'm a big fan of all three. Yeah, there's some aspects of their products I don't like, but overall I'm very happy with Atlassian offerings.
- nisa 10y ago
  I'm kind of got to be a Confluence Wiki Admin without prior notice and overall I would agree that they do a good job - but everything addon and macro related could get some clear and concise overhaul. I understand it's an ecosystem and there are lot's of clever and good ideas floating around but I'm never sure what can I use on my local confluence instance and what not... some documentation for newbie "idiot" developers is there.. and something for total professionals.. anything in between seems lacking. Luckily there is some stuff on bitbucket that you can analyse to get a grip on some ideas but it's neither intuitive nor easy. TL;DR: Confluence besides their Cloud is kind of badly treated and documentation for modern and up to scratch immediate plugin development is mostly nonexistent.
- jon-wood 10y ago
  So do I, and they're all tools that get the job done, but without any finesse or real care. Bitbucket is inferior in every way go Github, with a UI that screams feature box ticking. Confluence is a place for documentation to go and die a slow death, and I'm still convinced Jira was entirely designed to keep project managers and mouse manufacturers in business - you can't do anything without fifteen clicks around the screen. Give me Github, a repository full of markdown files, and Trello any day of the week.
darkstar999 10y ago
> In their official announcement today, the StatusPage co-founders also note that when the team explored the acquisition, “we were aligned on three important things: our complementary cultures, our desire to offer StatusPage as a standalone product, and our shared vision of the future of software.” Standalone product. I think it will be safe.
- timv 10y ago
  Bitbucket has remained a standalone product, but I don't think many of its original mercurial userbase feel like it's been "safe". When Atlassian bought bitbucket it was the place to host mercurial repositories. Now it's a git hosting service that hasn't gotten around to turning off mercurial support yet.
  - yeukhon 10y ago
    It would be a terrible move to disable mercurial support since Bitbucket is pretty much the only place you can host your Hg repo remotely with reputation. Other competitors just aren't up to bar.
    - ccrush 10y ago
      What do you think "up to bar" means? Where did you pick up that expression? Did you ever consider that those who use the expression "up to par," which means being ahead of the expected number of strokes on a golf course, might think that you are a moron for not knowing the correct term? I dont know if "up to bar" is an actual term people use, but I do know that some of the people aware of the term "up to par" would look down on you. I definitely am.
      - vadym909 10y ago
        Could it be that golf uses the term because par means equal. Its a pretty common phrase and means the same as 'not at par', 'up to snuff','not at the same level'. I've especially seen it used in hiring (high bar, below the bar, not at the bar'. Probably comes from the high jumper's bar.
atwebb 10y ago
Disagree on the Atlassian, well, JIRA at least. Just had to introduce it to a new group, we got cut short on the initial intro so I didn't get through much. Then to my surprise they were off and running the next day, they just got it.

This acquisition doesn't fill me with confidence for the future. StatusPage was a clean, simple, and intuitive service. Atlasssian's software is the opposite of clean, simple, and intuitive.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago

When I saw the quote by the StatusPage founders saying they were aligned with Atlassian, I laughed. These companies are near polar opposites.

r0m4n0 10y ago

Having used many different bug tracking, help desk, and ticketing softwares… Atlassian does a dam good job. Totally customizable screens, fields, and workflows with a modern UI. A decent webservice API I’ve integrated a few external tools into without much difficulty. I’ve also written a few gadgets and plugins and received a decent amount of attention through their plugin marketplace. Maybe the admin that setup your install or business workflow did a bad job? I don’t think you say the same about other competitors right now… ServiceNow? HP SMS or ALM? ClearQuest? I’ve used those and if you consider Atlassian terrible, I’m not sure what words you would use to describe them…

lojack 10y ago
> Maybe the admin that setup your install or business workflow did a bad job? I think this is key. There's so much customization allowed that its easy to get wrong. Your experiences can vary drastically between a well configured instance and a poorly configured one.
- gregmac 10y ago
  I'll also add it's not always obviously wrong when it's setup. For example, of course only QA people can use "Testing passed" transition. Of course there should be x, y, z fields filled out to be able to create the ticket. Well we're at it, let's make sure only the product manager can close a ticket with 'wontfix', and only the release manager can change a fixversion. This is a really common problem with any workflow tool, where well-intentioned control points get in the way of actually Getting Things Done, both from the perspective of not thinking through all the complex scenarios (what? I have to fill out 5 fields before I can close this as a duplicate??) and from not trusting your employees (don't worry, a jr. dev is not going to re-assign a fix version even though they can -- or at least, they won't do it twice).
  - ymerej 10y ago
    For you, there is Github issues. Have fun, cowboy.
    - nilkn 10y ago
      More seriously, there's FogBugz, which intentionally is not very customizable to avoid the issues the above poster was referring to. In my experience, FogBugz is a little too limited, so I do prefer Jira, but only when used by competent people who understand that the customization should not get in the way of getting things done and it should not be used to institutionalize a lack of trust in employees.
    - voltagex_ 10y ago
      Having used HP Quality Centre, JIRA and Team Foundation, I think your snark is unwarranted and there is a middle ground to be found between very basic issue tracking and something completely overbearing like QC.
      - glogla 10y ago
        It's been years and HPQC still gives me nightmares.
- manyxcxi 10y ago
  I think another thing people get wrong is before even using it they assume they've got to dive into a ton of custom workflows. I've had some fairly large teams able to use JIRA without a single workflow customization (especially with Agile). We've added custom fields and such along the way for better reporting and such but there is definitely some mileage you can get out of the box with it.
- jjcm 10y ago
  That's one of the reasons why we're switching to a cloud model in addition to the self-hosted server model. Some people wanted an easier more straight forward experience.
clappski 10y ago
We use ServiceNow at work, and it's absolutely horrible. Introduces so much red tape even to do simple things like become an administrator on a virtual machine requested against your account .
- fnord123 10y ago
  How do companies end up with the Service Now cancer? Are their sales meetings just hooker and coke parties? I've used it at two different companies and I wondered how anyone could look at it and think 'ok let's buy into this pile of horse shit'. My cat could do a better job.
  - stuff4ben 10y ago
    You obviously haven't seen Remedy.

fletchowns 10y ago

I use JIRA, Confluence, and BitBucket daily and I'm a big fan of all three. Yeah, there's some aspects of their products I don't like, but overall I'm very happy with Atlassian offerings.

nisa 10y ago
I'm kind of got to be a Confluence Wiki Admin without prior notice and overall I would agree that they do a good job - but everything addon and macro related could get some clear and concise overhaul. I understand it's an ecosystem and there are lot's of clever and good ideas floating around but I'm never sure what can I use on my local confluence instance and what not... some documentation for newbie "idiot" developers is there.. and something for total professionals.. anything in between seems lacking. Luckily there is some stuff on bitbucket that you can analyse to get a grip on some ideas but it's neither intuitive nor easy. TL;DR: Confluence besides their Cloud is kind of badly treated and documentation for modern and up to scratch immediate plugin development is mostly nonexistent.
jon-wood 10y ago
So do I, and they're all tools that get the job done, but without any finesse or real care. Bitbucket is inferior in every way go Github, with a UI that screams feature box ticking. Confluence is a place for documentation to go and die a slow death, and I'm still convinced Jira was entirely designed to keep project managers and mouse manufacturers in business - you can't do anything without fifteen clicks around the screen. Give me Github, a repository full of markdown files, and Trello any day of the week.

darkstar999 10y ago

> In their official announcement today, the StatusPage co-founders also note that when the team explored the acquisition, “we were aligned on three important things: our complementary cultures, our desire to offer StatusPage as a standalone product, and our shared vision of the future of software.” Standalone product. I think it will be safe.

timv 10y ago
Bitbucket has remained a standalone product, but I don't think many of its original mercurial userbase feel like it's been "safe". When Atlassian bought bitbucket it was the place to host mercurial repositories. Now it's a git hosting service that hasn't gotten around to turning off mercurial support yet.
- yeukhon 10y ago
  It would be a terrible move to disable mercurial support since Bitbucket is pretty much the only place you can host your Hg repo remotely with reputation. Other competitors just aren't up to bar.
  - ccrush 10y ago
    What do you think "up to bar" means? Where did you pick up that expression? Did you ever consider that those who use the expression "up to par," which means being ahead of the expected number of strokes on a golf course, might think that you are a moron for not knowing the correct term? I dont know if "up to bar" is an actual term people use, but I do know that some of the people aware of the term "up to par" would look down on you. I definitely am.
    - vadym909 10y ago
      Could it be that golf uses the term because par means equal. Its a pretty common phrase and means the same as 'not at par', 'up to snuff','not at the same level'. I've especially seen it used in hiring (high bar, below the bar, not at the bar'. Probably comes from the high jumper's bar.

atwebb 10y ago

Disagree on the Atlassian, well, JIRA at least. Just had to introduce it to a new group, we got cut short on the initial intro so I didn't get through much. Then to my surprise they were off and running the next day, they just got it.