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GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

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Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#491

Post by mfer »

generalk wrote: post #421

Regardless of what you think of Teams -- I myself have had nothing but poor experiences over 2.5 years of using it daily -- it's telling that Microsoft has to require folks to use Teams. I'm sure this is just Microsoft unifying everyone on the same comms platform, but seriously, I don't know anyone who chooses Teams. I know non-tech folks who chose Outlook 365 because of familiarity and then end up on Teams because i…

On a regular basis I use Teams, Zoom, and Jitsi for video conferencing. Teams isn't the most troublesome of the set.

> I'm sure this is just Microsoft unifying everyone on the same comms platform, but seriously, I don't know anyone who chooses Teams.

In big companies like GitHub people don't typically choose their own video conference platform. It's picked for them.

For Microsoft I can see a huge benefit to using Teams at GitHub. That's cost. Microsoft can use Teams at cost. That's a better price that those outside Microsoft can get it. It's a better deal than paying for Zoom. At a time when expenses are being cut it's hard to justify paying for a competitors platform.

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#492

Post by ragingroosevelt »

generalk wrote: post #421

Regardless of what you think of Teams -- I myself have had nothing but poor experiences over 2.5 years of using it daily -- it's telling that Microsoft has to require folks to use Teams. I'm sure this is just Microsoft unifying everyone on the same comms platform, but seriously, I don't know anyone who chooses Teams. I know non-tech folks who chose Outlook 365 because of familiarity and then end up on Teams because i…

Sample size of 1, but...

In my personal life, I got all my friends on Discord and we've been really happy with that. It's screen sharing seems tuned for video games, though, and sucks for sharing non-game applications. We all set up Teams accounts because it does so much better with screen sharing.

I haven't tried Slack recently but I really disliked that I needed a different account on each server and the UI didn't seem to unify the servers together in a convenient way like discord does. I'm pretty sure this is for enterprise support reasons and that it is by design, but it's still annoying for use when I'm just trying to talk to all of my circles of friends in one place.

At work we use Teams and I have zero complaints so far. We've been using it since either 2019 or 2020. It's so much better than Zoom + Mattermost or, before that Skype for Business / Lync. shudder

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#493

Post by twblalock »

flangola7 wrote: post #489
twblalock wrote: post #484

Let's be honest, Slack sucks too. All of the solutions in this space suck. Similarly, Jira sucks, but all alternatives to Jira also suck. It seems kind of silly for Github to pay for another solution when they could use the in-house solution (which is Teams). This is what you have to compromise on when you let another company acquire you. People who don't like it need to leave -- that might not be how the world ought…

Slack is excellent! What don't you like about it?

UI glitches, threads not scaling past a certain amount of comments, frequent undesired logouts, weird jumbled ordering of messages on the mobile app that eventually sorts itself out but leads to hilarious misinterpretation of conversations...

The worst part is how the phone app will scroll to the middle of the thread when I open one. I can understand how scrolling to either the top or bottom of the thread might make sense -- but who on earth wants the middle?

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#494

Post by [deleted] »

generalk wrote: post #483
npteljes wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's telling that Microsoft has to require folks to use Teams. Not really I think, considering that MS bought GitHub, with all of its already existing culture. I see this move as them homogenizing the infrastructure. And also not willing to pay to another company for a product that's actually their competition.

Of course, and I can't fault Microsoft for that, even if (having been on the bad end of a similar acquisition and IT merge) it sucks for GitHub. My point was: GitHub as an organization didn't choose Teams willingly, and are still paying for Slack and only using Teams for video conferencing. Of all the explanations of why that might be, the easiest to land on is "because Teams just isn't that good."

[deleted]

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#495

Post by betaby »

dgellow wrote: post #402
betaby wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Most of the laptops at my current jobs were 720p till 2023. I work for a huge enterprise (over 5k employees).

Damn, that sucks. What model are they?

Dell Latitude, various models. Even today some Latitude models are 1366X768

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#496

Post by AtNightWeCode »

kimbernator wrote: post #72

How is it possible that Teams is still such a poor product? I really didn't like it when my job switched like 6 years ago, and I don't recall ever feeling that it improved in any meaningful way. I switched jobs to one using Slack and it's not perfect but it is a lot better. It's almost a meme at this point. In the presence of other clients that have gotten it "right" (or at least more "right" than teams) like Slack,…

Teams is built upon broken dreams, broken design, SharePoint and the MS screwed up user account model. Add to that new poor tech choices, poor security choices and you have a beast that can't be controlled.

I think the Discord UX is worse but at least the product kinda works.

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#497

Post by heleninboodler »

X-Istence wrote: post #331
tengwar2 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is telling that there is almost no overlap between your list of why you hate Teams, and my list of why I hate Teams. Burn it with fire. Salt the ground on which it stood.

That's because there's nothing redeemable about Teams. My list of annoyances are the things I dealt with this morning... I am sure that if you give me another hour or two I will have a whole new list of annoyances :P

This is the real reason people hate it with such a passion. It's just got so many baffling/annoying misfeatures that you could make lists about it endlessly.

Have they changed the thing where you only see a circle with people's initials during meetings and you have to click on them to see their actual names?

Edit: note that zoom has some equally-baffling and irritating design choices, but at least it performs well and doesn't try to do nearly as much, so the list of things I hate about it stays small. It's also damning that the list of things I hate about it hasn't changed in the three years I've been using it heavily, but at this point I'm grudgingly comfortable with its "quirks."

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#498

Post by pknomad »

chasd00 wrote: post #26
staircasebug wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1 towards, "we will be using Teams for day-to-day collaboration".

Embrace Teams for video conferencing, Extend Teams to day-to-day collaboration, Extinguish Slack. That's not how Embrace-Extend-Extinquish worked traditionally but it still fits.

This is why I'm so happy to be in all *nix ecosystem for our infra. Some microsoft products work really well but they all have this tendency to metastasize and you'll get vendor locked to MS.

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#499

Post by tootie »

iso1631 wrote: post #55
tootie wrote: post #13

Maybe I'm nuts, but I see almost zero appreciable difference between any of the most common chat or video conference platforms. They all have some little quirks or bonus features, but 99% of the time I'm only using the core features that they all do the same. Slack is absurdly expensive for what it does. Slack Pro is $12.50/person/mo. It's the same price for O365 which includes chat, video and the entire Office suite…

> Slack Pro is $12.50/person/mo. It's the same price for O365 which includes chat, video and the entire Office suite. And how much is a junior engineer per month in a small European company, let alone a senior one in a FAANG?

If you're google, Microsoft of Amazon it's moot because you're eating your own dogfood. But regardless I think it's a myth to think that because a company has a lot of profit they won't pinch pennies. Every team has to aggressively manage their budget. If you have 40k employees then $5/mo adds up pretty fast.

Re: GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023

#500

Post by akdor1154 »

slantedview wrote: post #10
chongli wrote: post #2

That’s plenty of time to dust off the resume and start pounding the pavement! Very generous of Microsoft to give so much notice! Edit: for those who may think I’m overreacting to a small change in tooling, I offer this classic essay [1]. It explains the reasoning behind leaving much better than I could! [1] https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...

Changing jobs over video conferencing software would be extreme.

For me it would be a clear sign that my employer does not give a shit about me when making tooling decisions. And that situation is definitely one that would have me eyeing the exits.
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