4 ms·

Yep, basically don't have a choice and discussing alternatives is hopeless. We had better, once. Now we have this, in a full-blown browser runtime that doesn't

by ljm 7y ago

Yep, basically don't have a choice and discussing alternatives is hopeless. We had better, once. Now we have this, in a full-blown browser runtime that doesn't integrate with the OS very well. Actually triggers a good, 8-9 year old memory. Two places I worked at used to communicate through HipChat. It was simple, native, and did the job until Atlassian fucked it up with a massive rewrite. But even then it was still decent. In both cases there was a massive bike shedding moment where the company engaged in a chat-war, with one half being solely devoted to Slack, and the rest of us holding back and saying why we need to switch. In both cases the Slack advocates went rogue and since they were also the loudest voices, people switched over just to get back into the conversation. I have no idea what spell was cast on those people by Slack but, god damnit, it worked. It's just IRC in a walled garden and costing 10x as much, with shitty features you can't opt out of (like the new editor and threads, which birthed a whole cadre of slack micro-managers).

endemic 7y ago
Your experience mirrors mine, almost exactly. One other advantage of HipChat was that it‘s native Android client would run without requiring Play Services; Slack purposefully won't run without it.
brianpgordon 7y ago
Were you using the same HipChat that I was? I recall the engineers at my employer (including me) clamoring to get off HipChat and onto Slack. Search was terrible, integrations/automation were clunky, and it was difficult to post code into chat. Slack was a breath of fresh air when we switched. Also, I think Slack's threads are useful. You can have channels where you just post a single message for your question/issue and then have people reply in a thread, so that messages are naturally grouped together by topic instead of being a firehose of interleaved messages. Combined with good search, this makes Slack more of a valuable knowledge store than just an ephemeral chat tool.
- ljm 7y ago
  We didn't need an all-in-one hub for realtime chat. Hipchat worked great for us, we had a separate WhatsApp group (with the founders and everyone else in there) for the social stuff. We all mingled but if you didn't want to, they'd find the preferred way to talk to you. I don't want to name the exact place this happened but it was certainly a unique culture that I now miss. It was neither British or American. It was the only place I've worked where I had easy and direct access to the founders, the C level, and the VPs, as a lowly senior engineer. And not because I brown-nosed my way up; we'd connect outside of work because we liked the same things. A total tangent, but it's just to say that we never needed Slack in the first place. I doubt many places do.
- jsjohnst 7y ago
  > Search was terrible, integrations/automation were clunky, and it was difficult to post code into chat Ok, so Slack solved #2 I feel and formerly solved #3 (but has regressed significantly in recent months). Not sure gaining #2 was worth the new negatives we got.
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  Wait, search on Hipchat was worse than Slack's? I never used Hipchat but worse search than Slack is a high bar.
pythux 7y ago
I was not aware of the « HipChat rewrite » but we used it in my previous company and it was Ok. One day a colleague told the team about Slack; I was skeptical. So 4 people gave it a shot for a few days/weeks (including me). The result was that, except the built-in bot to show random Gifs, Slack was superior for our use case in all aspects and we eventually switched everyone over, and all were happy. This was 4 or 5 years ago. Now in my current company we also use Slack. It’s good, but not great either. Mostly because the UI is super slow when running in my desktop browser (Cliqz, Firefox-based). But it’s still better than Teams in my experience (I did not try the other alternatives).
RHSeeger 7y ago
My experience with Hipchat was all negative. The ability to format text/code was abysmal. At one point it started crashing after an update and I had to download/install an older version just to use it. I have issues with Slack, but I'd use email threads before I voluntarily went back to Hipchat.

by ljm 7y ago

endemic 7y ago

Your experience mirrors mine, almost exactly. One other advantage of HipChat was that it‘s native Android client would run without requiring Play Services; Slack purposefully won't run without it.

brianpgordon 7y ago

Were you using the same HipChat that I was? I recall the engineers at my employer (including me) clamoring to get off HipChat and onto Slack. Search was terrible, integrations/automation were clunky, and it was difficult to post code into chat. Slack was a breath of fresh air when we switched. Also, I think Slack's threads are useful. You can have channels where you just post a single message for your question/issue and then have people reply in a thread, so that messages are naturally grouped together by topic instead of being a firehose of interleaved messages. Combined with good search, this makes Slack more of a valuable knowledge store than just an ephemeral chat tool.

ljm 7y ago
We didn't need an all-in-one hub for realtime chat. Hipchat worked great for us, we had a separate WhatsApp group (with the founders and everyone else in there) for the social stuff. We all mingled but if you didn't want to, they'd find the preferred way to talk to you. I don't want to name the exact place this happened but it was certainly a unique culture that I now miss. It was neither British or American. It was the only place I've worked where I had easy and direct access to the founders, the C level, and the VPs, as a lowly senior engineer. And not because I brown-nosed my way up; we'd connect outside of work because we liked the same things. A total tangent, but it's just to say that we never needed Slack in the first place. I doubt many places do.
jsjohnst 7y ago
> Search was terrible, integrations/automation were clunky, and it was difficult to post code into chat Ok, so Slack solved #2 I feel and formerly solved #3 (but has regressed significantly in recent months). Not sure gaining #2 was worth the new negatives we got.
dreamcompiler 7y ago
Wait, search on Hipchat was worse than Slack's? I never used Hipchat but worse search than Slack is a high bar.

pythux 7y ago

I was not aware of the « HipChat rewrite » but we used it in my previous company and it was Ok. One day a colleague told the team about Slack; I was skeptical. So 4 people gave it a shot for a few days/weeks (including me). The result was that, except the built-in bot to show random Gifs, Slack was superior for our use case in all aspects and we eventually switched everyone over, and all were happy. This was 4 or 5 years ago. Now in my current company we also use Slack. It’s good, but not great either. Mostly because the UI is super slow when running in my desktop browser (Cliqz, Firefox-based). But it’s still better than Teams in my experience (I did not try the other alternatives).

RHSeeger 7y ago

My experience with Hipchat was all negative. The ability to format text/code was abysmal. At one point it started crashing after an update and I had to download/install an older version just to use it. I have issues with Slack, but I'd use email threads before I voluntarily went back to Hipchat.