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I wouldn't say that I hate Atlassian but I didn't get on with either Confluence or Jira. I think now that web applications have become so advanced, we are start

I wouldn't say that I hate Atlassian but I didn't get on with either Confluence or Jira. I think now that web applications have become so advanced, we are starting to suffer from subtle UX issues that are not necessarily easy to pin-down. Some issues are oobvious like too many clicks; not putting common operations in the same part of the screen; general latency, especially when you need to use too many clicks. But the ones I am talking about are more like how does this UI representation match the way I see these things in my head. Trello works because tasks to most people are post-it notes or index cards, as soon as you end up adding a lot of fluff to contain the extra options, it feels jarring even if it is conceptually the same thing. Lots of tools offer the "quick add" function and this can help but unless I feel that I can quickly achieve what I need with a tool, I won't use it even if I can't say exactly why.

tharkun__ 4y ago
Totally agree with things like cards and such. Fun part is that Jira has had this as an add on for much longer than some people realize. Probably because they were in companies that did not let them use that or did not let them use it in an effective way. It started as a plugin called GreenHopper and Atlassian bought them, which is now just "Jira Software". What I'm talking about is a simple Kanban board, where the cards are the Jira issues. If you use a simple workflow (such as the default "Open, In Progress, Done", which you can transition in any way you want) you are set very quickly. Simply create a Kanban board and you're basically at Trello. Now I get it, because of Jira's legacy and what it can do, it can be overwhelming how to configure it. I am biased there because I've been using it for such a long time, including as someone w/ admin privileges) that I know what to do to achieve what our team wants/needs almost instantly and if I have admin privileges I can either do it myself really quickly or I can tell someone w/ privileges what to do so that we get what we want - if the hierarchy is flat enough :), so I have no huge friction to achieve these things with the tool. I have the opposite problem usually with other tools. Things I take for granted I can do with the Atlassian toolchain are impossible or have been requested from other tools for years and not been implemented. An easy example is Github. They had no "File Explorer" view in PRs. All just a big page you scroll through. It's impossible to do a proper PR that way if you ask me. We've had this since Crucible days in the Atlassian toolchain. And yes, finally Github does have it too now and I can easily navigate back and forth between files while cross referencing things. Github Actions vs. Bamboo. Just so rudimentary in comparison. It has some really nice features out of the box that Atlassian only added later on but is lacking in many other areas. Awesome to have the ability to specify actions directly in your repo (in `.github/`) but I can't easily see old failed builds through my PR (this is important, yes builds fail and I need to cross reference them and I don't want to go to a filter UI somewhere outside my PR). This seems to basic. While I can define workflows through code, I can't properly introduce one on a branch. I have to cheat to get it onto `master` first.

tharkun__ 4y ago

Totally agree with things like cards and such. Fun part is that Jira has had this as an add on for much longer than some people realize. Probably because they were in companies that did not let them use that or did not let them use it in an effective way. It started as a plugin called GreenHopper and Atlassian bought them, which is now just "Jira Software". What I'm talking about is a simple Kanban board, where the cards are the Jira issues. If you use a simple workflow (such as the default "Open, In Progress, Done", which you can transition in any way you want) you are set very quickly. Simply create a Kanban board and you're basically at Trello. Now I get it, because of Jira's legacy and what it can do, it can be overwhelming how to configure it. I am biased there because I've been using it for such a long time, including as someone w/ admin privileges) that I know what to do to achieve what our team wants/needs almost instantly and if I have admin privileges I can either do it myself really quickly or I can tell someone w/ privileges what to do so that we get what we want - if the hierarchy is flat enough :), so I have no huge friction to achieve these things with the tool. I have the opposite problem usually with other tools. Things I take for granted I can do with the Atlassian toolchain are impossible or have been requested from other tools for years and not been implemented. An easy example is Github. They had no "File Explorer" view in PRs. All just a big page you scroll through. It's impossible to do a proper PR that way if you ask me. We've had this since Crucible days in the Atlassian toolchain. And yes, finally Github does have it too now and I can easily navigate back and forth between files while cross referencing things. Github Actions vs. Bamboo. Just so rudimentary in comparison. It has some really nice features out of the box that Atlassian only added later on but is lacking in many other areas. Awesome to have the ability to specify actions directly in your repo (in `.github/`) but I can't easily see old failed builds through my PR (this is important, yes builds fail and I need to cross reference them and I don't want to go to a filter UI somewhere outside my PR). This seems to basic. While I can define workflows through code, I can't properly introduce one on a branch. I have to cheat to get it onto `master` first.