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Why Jira Sucks

whyjirasucks.com

51–60 of 530 posts

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#51
As others have said here, the main problem is just that it’s really slow.

Apart from that, I think the only item on this list that really puts its finger on a key problem is #1, inability to manage dependencies between projects. You try to work around Jira’s problems by splitting the work into separate projects, but then they’re almost completely siloed, and Jira doesn’t help you connect them up.

The other problem I have with it is that it’s too fussy about the hierarchy of issue types. You have sub-tasks, stories, epics, and initiatives. Each one has special semantics and certain supported operations. If you started defining some work at the wrong level of granularity, too bad, because switching everything to a different tier is complicated and massively slow (literally a multi-page wizard, a progress bar and a confirmation screen when making a “mass edit”, i.e. a trivial edit to two or more issues).

Hierarchical issues is a good idea, because that’s a very natural way to break down and refine work estimates, but it should just be an arbitrary tree, not a strict and limited set of tiers.

Too much complexity, not enough generality. (And not enough speed.)

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#52

We are trying to unsuck Jira for users with an alternative UI, allowing them to manage Jira issues on a virtual whiteboard. [1]. [1] https://spartez-software.com/products/whiteboards-for-jira

Spartez rings a bell. Aren't you the very people who create software for Atlassian?

Yes, but no. You can check some details here https://spartez-software.com/blog/2020/10/27/two-spartez-com...

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#54

What would you have us use instead? Trello?

My go-to options are the following: - Whatever GitHub/GitLab provides if I need the most basic level of tracking. - Trello for a more polished experience, a few additional ticket/board related features and easier involvement of non-developers. - Linear if there's a bigger team that needs more than a bunch of boards (backlogs, roadmaps, projects, teams etc.).

Not sure why you're being downvoted - someone from Atlassian, maybe?

I wholeheartedly agree with your suggestions. Trello won't scale, but it's good for n < 3 users, especially if working with non-engineers / non-PMs.

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#55
In my job I use:

* Google Analytics

* Google Search Console

* Jira

So basically I wait and wait and wait to manage projects to make websites fast.

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#56
What’s killing Jira and the other tools in Atlassian’s suite for us is them killing off the on-premises server products. Some of the companies I work with have defense security requirements and just can’t use it in the cloud (unless they followed a lot of stringent requirements that are not on their roadmap, and I assume they would charge a lot more for that).

The cloud versions are also far more expensive and while I’ve always liked the software in general (apart from it being dog slow), a big draw was how cost effective the server products were. So I’m about to start evaluating GitLab, YouTrack, etc. to start moving these companies off Jira, Bitbucket and Confluence in the next year or so.

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#57
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nineties called, they want their java jokes back.

Consider yourself lucky that you have never had to use Jira.

IntelliJ, Clion, and the host of JetBrains IDEs are written in Java, and they're the best IDEs on the planet. Better than VisualStudio.

Minecraft Java Edition is fantastic.

Java is just a tool. Atlassian isn't a good workshop.

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#58
Unpopular opinion: it doesn’t suck.

Let me walk that back a bit - I have no experience of the cloudy version which unanimously seems to be derided as slow. Atlassian - you might wanna fix that. Like yesterday.

But server (& datacentre) editions - best in class for my money.

In terms of features, the Rally / Agile Central (did that just re-brand again?) rollup roadmap view is the only missing feature i crave. Atlassian should just merge the portfolio product into jira.

As for everything else - speed is absolutely fine if hosted well.

I tend to council people to try to use less features not more - often jira features are used to attempt to work around challenges that are best addressed by talking to people instead.

It integrates with everything, no matter what source control, build pipeline or IDE tooling is in use, there’s integration with jira.

The REST API is absolutely usable (mostly for workflow automation and analysis purposes).

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#59
post #57
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider yourself lucky that you have never had to use Jira.

IntelliJ, Clion, and the host of JetBrains IDEs are written in Java, and they're the best IDEs on the planet. Better than VisualStudio. Minecraft Java Edition is fantastic. Java is just a tool. Atlassian isn't a good workshop.

I haven’t used any of those IDEs, but really, is Minecraft your example? A game with graphics so simple it should work on a Pentium 4 but requires a very beefy computer instead because it’s written in Java.

They rewrote it (not sure if in C++ or C#) for the windows store and it works perfectly on computers that can barely run the Java version.

Re: Why Jira Sucks

#60
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nineties called, they want their java jokes back.

Consider yourself lucky that you have never had to use Jira.

I've been using Jira for many years in different organisations. Just pointing out that Java has nothing to do with how bad Jira has become.
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