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Agree completely. AWS portal is bizarre, it's like each portion is written by a different company. In ECR for example, clicking into a repo is fine, but then g

Agree completely. AWS portal is bizarre, it's like each portion is written by a different company. In ECR for example, clicking into a repo is fine, but then going back doesn't do anything. Why? Even simple favicons don't look like they're from the same company. When you've got 40 tabs open you want an idea that that particular tab is from AWS or not. Azure is nicer, but it's not reliable (see my other post on this thread). It's almost like Azure have done too much lazy-loading which persists through login sessions, you can't rely on a refresh to give you the truth - for all the problems with AWS, you can. And yes I know this isn't CLI stuff, but it's important. Even on fully automated / scripted deployments it's sometimes nice to go into the UI and see what's going on. If it doesn't represent reality, there is a problem. FWIW GC doesn't have any of these problems, but it is slow.

GordonS 8y ago
You only mention Azure DevOps in your other comment - have you used Azure in a wider sense? As another datapoint of one, I've been working with Azure for years, and have never found the UI to be unreliable.
- sofaofthedamned 8y ago
  I have occasionally but not in anger, and not for a while. It's a good point you make, but my experience recently with Azure DevOps is similar or worse to that I dealt with previously on Azure. Worst thing about it is that I was originally impressed with Azure DevOps - the onboarding was awesome, almost combined the best bits of GitLab / GitHub with none of the crap of Jenkins. It was only after going back a couple of days later it let me down.
  - vtbassmatt 8y ago
    As a PM on Azure Pipelines, I'm really interested to learn how we let you down after a few days. If you're willing to share, I'm mattc at xbox.com. Or post here, whatever works.
    - sofaofthedamned 8y ago
      Thanks! I'm going to play around with it a bit more and if I still have problems i'll hit you up. The GUI stuff was all a precursor to automating it with Ansible anyway so unless that's broken I think it'll be okay. Azure Devops is awesome though. Told my wife i'd found a modern Microsoft product I really liked, she nearly fainted.
- virgilp 8y ago
  I've been working with it for months (still do), and have never found it to be good or reliable. The endless-horizontal-growth is maddening. Horizontal scroll-in-scroll is very hard to do for users, why they thought it'd be a good idea is beyond me; you can't easily select stuff (e.g. CosmosDb database names, that get truncated if they're long) - and can't right-click to "inspect element" either, you have explicitly open "developer tools". Occasionally Firefox will go mad when Azure is open and spin up my fans like crazy. There are errors that you can get that are completely cryptic (forgot to fill in the "subnet" in HDInsight? Well sorry, your cluster is stuck in "validating" forever). Storage options are confusing - in AWS you have S3, here you have ADLS Gen1, Gen2, Blob storage which is actually "binary blob/page blob/ append blob" but is presented as "tables/ queues/blobs" and oh BTW ADLS Gen2 is based on it but Gen1 is not (you provision a gen2 acount from "storage accounts" but Gen1 has its own UI section). I could go on and on. It's not like Azure is completely bad, but I far prefer the developer experience of AWS. It's not perfect, but IMO it's much better.
  - GordonS 8y ago
    Wow, seems like your experience is very different from mine or that of my co-workers! Regarding copying stuff, if you hover over just about any text element, a little 'copy' icon will appear. I like this feature.
    - virgilp 8y ago
      > if you hover over just about any text element, a little 'copy' icon will appear. I like this feature. Think I didn't try that? Doesn't work on CosmosDB databases. Yes, for a lot of items it's true that "copy" is easy.... but when it's not easy, it's crazy hard. I'm guessing that your company doesn't have hundreds of Azure subscriptions (and the proportional number of other resources to manage, in them). When there are a lot of elements that you need to manage/ browse through/ look for, you start to appreciate the simplicity of the AWS ui, and the fact that it prioritizes "snappy" over "fancy". Azure might be great for an SMB, but I think for large enterprises, AWS is still unchallenged.
      - 8y ago
dekhn 8y ago
The term you're looking for with the AWS Portal is "they're shipping the org chart". Different teams build plugins for the portal, with a bunch of latitude to define the custom experience.

GordonS 8y ago

You only mention Azure DevOps in your other comment - have you used Azure in a wider sense? As another datapoint of one, I've been working with Azure for years, and have never found the UI to be unreliable.

sofaofthedamned 8y ago
I have occasionally but not in anger, and not for a while. It's a good point you make, but my experience recently with Azure DevOps is similar or worse to that I dealt with previously on Azure. Worst thing about it is that I was originally impressed with Azure DevOps - the onboarding was awesome, almost combined the best bits of GitLab / GitHub with none of the crap of Jenkins. It was only after going back a couple of days later it let me down.
- vtbassmatt 8y ago
  As a PM on Azure Pipelines, I'm really interested to learn how we let you down after a few days. If you're willing to share, I'm mattc at xbox.com. Or post here, whatever works.
  - sofaofthedamned 8y ago
    Thanks! I'm going to play around with it a bit more and if I still have problems i'll hit you up. The GUI stuff was all a precursor to automating it with Ansible anyway so unless that's broken I think it'll be okay. Azure Devops is awesome though. Told my wife i'd found a modern Microsoft product I really liked, she nearly fainted.
virgilp 8y ago
I've been working with it for months (still do), and have never found it to be good or reliable. The endless-horizontal-growth is maddening. Horizontal scroll-in-scroll is very hard to do for users, why they thought it'd be a good idea is beyond me; you can't easily select stuff (e.g. CosmosDb database names, that get truncated if they're long) - and can't right-click to "inspect element" either, you have explicitly open "developer tools". Occasionally Firefox will go mad when Azure is open and spin up my fans like crazy. There are errors that you can get that are completely cryptic (forgot to fill in the "subnet" in HDInsight? Well sorry, your cluster is stuck in "validating" forever). Storage options are confusing - in AWS you have S3, here you have ADLS Gen1, Gen2, Blob storage which is actually "binary blob/page blob/ append blob" but is presented as "tables/ queues/blobs" and oh BTW ADLS Gen2 is based on it but Gen1 is not (you provision a gen2 acount from "storage accounts" but Gen1 has its own UI section). I could go on and on. It's not like Azure is completely bad, but I far prefer the developer experience of AWS. It's not perfect, but IMO it's much better.
- GordonS 8y ago
  Wow, seems like your experience is very different from mine or that of my co-workers! Regarding copying stuff, if you hover over just about any text element, a little 'copy' icon will appear. I like this feature.
  - virgilp 8y ago
    > if you hover over just about any text element, a little 'copy' icon will appear. I like this feature. Think I didn't try that? Doesn't work on CosmosDB databases. Yes, for a lot of items it's true that "copy" is easy.... but when it's not easy, it's crazy hard. I'm guessing that your company doesn't have hundreds of Azure subscriptions (and the proportional number of other resources to manage, in them). When there are a lot of elements that you need to manage/ browse through/ look for, you start to appreciate the simplicity of the AWS ui, and the fact that it prioritizes "snappy" over "fancy". Azure might be great for an SMB, but I think for large enterprises, AWS is still unchallenged.
    - 8y ago

dekhn 8y ago

The term you're looking for with the AWS Portal is "they're shipping the org chart". Different teams build plugins for the portal, with a bunch of latitude to define the custom experience.