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Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

toxicbakery.github.io

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Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#121

Post by ethomson »

ethomson wrote: post #12

PM for Azure DevOps here. We've been investing heavily in our user experience and our CI/CD experience, so I'm sad to see that we've disappointed here. Some of these complaints I would agree with - in particularly, we're not (yet) caching build resources - though we're working on this now. But most of these complaints I was quite surprised to hear; not an experience I would want someone to have or what I see from the…

There's a lot of comments about our UI and I thought I'd post a quick followup here instead of replying to each one individually. We are definitely reading these comments. UI itself is polarizing, and changing a UI moreso, but there's a lot of critical feedback here that we're going to investigate, try to understand and improve.

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#122

Post by stevenacreman »

raxxorrax wrote: post #106

Interesting post. I feel for him using this tool. Had my own experience with team foundation server on premise. Although a different tool, many of the problems seem quite similar. A little rant: To the cloud infrastructure of MS: I don't know if anyone uses it for anything serious and doesn't complain about severe performance issues not only related to builds, but everything. From administrative sites to hosted envir…

This is true of all of the services I've tried across Azure, AWS and Google cloud.

Microsoft are always last place in terms of performance and reliability.

For Kubernetes I actually keep track of exactly how bad they are with an automated testing tool.

Results of the last test are here: https://kubedex.com/is-azure-kubernetes-aks-any-less-terribl...

I've complained about UX before in the context of the Azure portal being, in my opinion, terrible. But that's subjective and I respect that others may like it, although not sure how they do.

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#123

Post by chupasaurus »

skriticos2 wrote: post #105
throw_away2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This mimics the mac vs windows argument I had with my brother-in-law where it boiled down to the fact that you could run windows on something cheaper than a macbook. Even though in order to remap caps lock to something reasonable you have to edit the registry. In 2019. The best answer I think involves windows server 2003 resource kit and its UI, which is so old it could get a driver's license. You save money but what…

It's not even about the price. I have no problem tweaking my Linux desktop to use an international Dvorak layout (useful for those European languages with ä's and é's) and switching the caps and ctrl keys. Say what you want about Gnome 3, but this works just fine. On Windows.. I get a US only bare bone Dvorak layout and few ways to remap the caps/ctrl keys. Messing with the registry is at best annoying on my gaming (…

> useful for those European languages with ä's and é's

As I'm not typing them frequently I'm happy with a Compose key binded to Scroll Lock.

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#124

Post by rlv-dan »

ethomson wrote: post #12

PM for Azure DevOps here. We've been investing heavily in our user experience and our CI/CD experience, so I'm sad to see that we've disappointed here. Some of these complaints I would agree with - in particularly, we're not (yet) caching build resources - though we're working on this now. But most of these complaints I was quite surprised to hear; not an experience I would want someone to have or what I see from the…

The old UX was not perfect, but I find that it worked better in so many ways. New UX does not seem finished, just pushed out in beta state. Like O365. Sad.

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#125

Post by Bombthecat »

elmalto wrote: post #51
ethomson wrote: post #12

PM for Azure DevOps here. We've been investing heavily in our user experience and our CI/CD experience, so I'm sad to see that we've disappointed here. Some of these complaints I would agree with - in particularly, we're not (yet) caching build resources - though we're working on this now. But most of these complaints I was quite surprised to hear; not an experience I would want someone to have or what I see from the…

We use Azure DevOps extensively at my work and, after having used GitHub, Gitlab, self hosted solutions, Jenkins, TeamCity... DevOps ranks dead last. It's the entire experience. The UI is terribly clunky everywhere. The worst for me are pull requests. Incredibly tough to work with people on a pull request. I can't even point you to "a" particular problem - for us it's broken everywhere. From the weird file comparison…

I just manage cdn and domains with this interface, it is super annoying, slow and complicated, already. I don't want to know how it is with more complex stuff...

The API is probably your only chance..

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#126

Post by nbevans »

My mind was blown when we invested a week in setting up DevOps, then realised it has a critical flaw in that the automated build agent will just go into hibernation if there was no build activity for a few hours. So then you have to write a script that invokes a manual build via the API just to keep DevOps "alive". It's like they forgot to properly setup the IIS Worker Pool timeout values or something.

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#127

Post by Bombthecat »

vezycash wrote: post #112
tinus_hn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These large cut and paste answers with completely irrelevant instructions and a lot of begging for points. Totally useless and infuriating if you've spent a lot of time writing a good report.

Microsoft could further save money by building an answer bot. It'll cost less, answer faster and wouldn't be any worse than the current outsourced indian community support staff.

Don't give them ideas...

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#128

Post by stevenacreman »

chrisrpatterson wrote: post #41
toxicbakery wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horrifically broken was an exaggeration, you are correct. Much of this was written after a stressful day compounded by dealing with our CI failing to do the thing it is supposed to do. I also agree with you that Microsoft has been making great strides in the direction of "getting a lot of things right lately" as you said.

We really hate to hear you are having such a bad experience. The engineering manager has reached out on Twitter and included me. I would love to see what I can do to help

I personally don't really understand this approach. In fact, this approach annoys me.

In this situation I feel like the product has already wasted my time and now people are contacting me to waste more of my time.

The blog is really detailed and includes screenshots. You could fix the obvious issues and then follow up with an update once it's released.

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#129

Post by chupasaurus »

sl1ck731 wrote: post #94
Annatar wrote: post #88

I'm genuinely curious: what exactly is so hard about installing and system administering one's own servers inhouse that so many people would put up with these complications?

For us its: availability outside of VPN and avoiding the run around of making a public site with security, integration with active directory, has repos + a wiki + boards all in one place. No configuring 3 different OSS products to integrate with AD. We use the other stuff more than the CI, but will probably begin using it for some more smaller projects soon. It'll be in the same place which is great and no need to ti…

If you have problem with configuring service users in AD, I guess you have problems with security or group policies on a regular basis.

Re: Microsoft’s Azure DevOps: An Unsatisfying Adventure

#130

Post by colde »

setquk wrote: post #89
vezycash wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my experience with Microsoft. I believe their feedback mechanisms are placebo, pacifiers for loud people. Microsoft pesters you to give feedback and works hard to ignore them. And then goes ahead with what they initially planned. At the end, they'll announce - "We had delivered what you wanted. Based on feedback..." And then you start wondering if you're in the minority and other people are simply crazy until…

Yes. Incidentally Connect used to be a placebo for us enterprise lot. This has been going on for a long time. And I get told regularly by people who only use the Microsoft ecosystem that’s it is me who is the problem as well!? These people are just assuming the status quo is being punched in the dick all day.

And even worse when dealing with PlayReady. In the time i have been working with it, they have been switching between at least 4-5 different "Connect"-like portals for feedback and support. Each time dumping all the content from the previous that was no longer accessible.
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