3 ms·

Burndown charts, really? Fine, but that seems like a bit of feature creep to have features for manager-types in what I've always seen, overall, as a dev tool.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Latty 9y ago
Those manager-types are the ones that tend to get a final say on what the devs use (rightly or wrongly), and if they feel they need those features, they are going to want to use a different tool.
purerandomness 9y ago
It's in the Enterprise Edition only, where it belongs.
sdesol 9y ago
I don't think people fully realize how truly difficult it is produce next generation dev tools. What GitLab is doing makes perfect business sense, since it's an order of a magnitude easier to create business focused solutions, compared to dev related solutions. Creating next generation issue trackers, search, build solutions, etc. requires significant R&D and I really don't think GitLab is focused on this type of skunk work. I personally think Microsoft has the best chance to disrupt the software development lifecycle in the future, due to their R&D budget and talent pool. GitLab in a lot of ways, is sitting in a perfect business position. All they have to do is look at what Atlassian, Microsoft, GitHub, etc. are doing and copy what can be copied. There really is no shame in this, as this only makes business sense. Git has created an opening into the software development market that has never existed before. In the past, you had to spend a lot of time and money to create a version control system, which you could use as a beachhead for Enterprise sales. However with Git, you no longer require significant time and money to compete. With Git, the really hard stuff is being worked on for free, by some of the smartest people around the world. And because of that, you can focus on solving the not so difficult problems, but still problems people would pay for. Git has created a massive opening for who can compete in Enterprise, but as the easier problems get solved and turn into commodity features; focus should shift again, to the not so easy problems. If GitLab invests properly, they should be able to compete in the long run with Microsoft and others. The challenge I guess, is knowing when to start focusing on the harder problems.
- sytse 9y ago
  What would you like to see in a next generation issue trackers, search, or build solution?
  - sdesol 9y ago
    I suspect the next big thing will be to incorporate machine learning into the software development life cycle. - Issue comments that are no longer relevant, should be collapsed by default. - You should be able to get a "too long; did not read" for issue comments. - Searches should be context aware. Matches should take into consideration the user, time, branch (is this a release branch, developer branch, shared development branch, etc.) and so on. - Build logs should include a "too long; did not read" - Builds should be context aware to prevent wasting of resources. I guess what ever can save time, money and speed development would be next generation features. I'm not sure what GitLab's sales engagement looks like, but if you are not, you should be asking to speak with a company's internal, tools dev team, if you can. Large companies spend an insane amount of money and time, creating/maintaining bespoked dev tools for internal use. Companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. spend millions in labour cost annually, to build and maintain their internal solutions. GitLab's goal, should be to see if they can create comparable solutions, that can be managed by small startups and mid size companies. Having worked in tools dev for Enterprise, I knew being able to search and analzye anything, is a time saver, but I also knew, it would be cost prohibitive for many smaller companies to provide such a solution internally. This was why I set out to develop a solution that could be maintained by companies of all sizes and this should be the thought process for GitLab, in my opinion. If GitLab wants to work on solving the harder problems, it should understand what companies are spending internal resources on creating/maintaining and see if they can't make it available for the masses. What you learn could lead to more intelligent code review solutions among other things. In a lot of ways, you are trying to capture somebodies skill set/knowledge, which isn't all that trivial.
    - sytse 9y ago
      I'm onboard with the: ask large companies what they are making. The cycle analytics feature comes to mind as something that they mention.
manigandham 9y ago
Do developers not have managers? Why have yet another tool for some basic oversight reporting?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Latty 9y ago

Those manager-types are the ones that tend to get a final say on what the devs use (rightly or wrongly), and if they feel they need those features, they are going to want to use a different tool.

purerandomness 9y ago

It's in the Enterprise Edition only, where it belongs.

sdesol 9y ago

I don't think people fully realize how truly difficult it is produce next generation dev tools. What GitLab is doing makes perfect business sense, since it's an order of a magnitude easier to create business focused solutions, compared to dev related solutions. Creating next generation issue trackers, search, build solutions, etc. requires significant R&D and I really don't think GitLab is focused on this type of skunk work. I personally think Microsoft has the best chance to disrupt the software development lifecycle in the future, due to their R&D budget and talent pool. GitLab in a lot of ways, is sitting in a perfect business position. All they have to do is look at what Atlassian, Microsoft, GitHub, etc. are doing and copy what can be copied. There really is no shame in this, as this only makes business sense. Git has created an opening into the software development market that has never existed before. In the past, you had to spend a lot of time and money to create a version control system, which you could use as a beachhead for Enterprise sales. However with Git, you no longer require significant time and money to compete. With Git, the really hard stuff is being worked on for free, by some of the smartest people around the world. And because of that, you can focus on solving the not so difficult problems, but still problems people would pay for. Git has created a massive opening for who can compete in Enterprise, but as the easier problems get solved and turn into commodity features; focus should shift again, to the not so easy problems. If GitLab invests properly, they should be able to compete in the long run with Microsoft and others. The challenge I guess, is knowing when to start focusing on the harder problems.

sytse 9y ago
What would you like to see in a next generation issue trackers, search, or build solution?
- sdesol 9y ago
  I suspect the next big thing will be to incorporate machine learning into the software development life cycle. - Issue comments that are no longer relevant, should be collapsed by default. - You should be able to get a "too long; did not read" for issue comments. - Searches should be context aware. Matches should take into consideration the user, time, branch (is this a release branch, developer branch, shared development branch, etc.) and so on. - Build logs should include a "too long; did not read" - Builds should be context aware to prevent wasting of resources. I guess what ever can save time, money and speed development would be next generation features. I'm not sure what GitLab's sales engagement looks like, but if you are not, you should be asking to speak with a company's internal, tools dev team, if you can. Large companies spend an insane amount of money and time, creating/maintaining bespoked dev tools for internal use. Companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. spend millions in labour cost annually, to build and maintain their internal solutions. GitLab's goal, should be to see if they can create comparable solutions, that can be managed by small startups and mid size companies. Having worked in tools dev for Enterprise, I knew being able to search and analzye anything, is a time saver, but I also knew, it would be cost prohibitive for many smaller companies to provide such a solution internally. This was why I set out to develop a solution that could be maintained by companies of all sizes and this should be the thought process for GitLab, in my opinion. If GitLab wants to work on solving the harder problems, it should understand what companies are spending internal resources on creating/maintaining and see if they can't make it available for the masses. What you learn could lead to more intelligent code review solutions among other things. In a lot of ways, you are trying to capture somebodies skill set/knowledge, which isn't all that trivial.
  - sytse 9y ago
    I'm onboard with the: ask large companies what they are making. The cycle analytics feature comes to mind as something that they mention.

manigandham 9y ago

Do developers not have managers? Why have yet another tool for some basic oversight reporting?