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The Return of Fancy Tools

macwright.com

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Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#71

Post by pessimizer »

aflag wrote: post #4
drawkbox wrote: post #2

Good games should be easy to approach and difficult to master . Good tools should be easy to approach with the ability to customize and do more advanced actions, but never difficult Good tools and products encapsulate complexity but still allow access to it where needed. Good tools aim to simplify complexity, not complexify simplicity. Good engineers and product people make tools that aim to simplify. Make it approac…

I don't think good tools are necessarily easy to approach. Some of the best tools I know have quite a steep learning curve. A good tool is one that gives you power. It makes difficult and complicated tasks easy and simple. It may come with the cost of getting good with using the tool, but once you master it, you don't know how you lived without it.

A good tool is one that works, and works predictably. If it can just stay reasonably dependable, I'll come up with ways to use it to its limits.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#72

Post by jruthers »

bitexploder wrote: post #44

First, this is an interesting take, and I think there is some kernels to consider in it. However, the author is painting very broadly with a large brush and smudging a lot. I have been happily using PyCharm/IntelliJ since what feels like the dawn of time. It is a perfectly complex and rewarding Fancy Tool. People still use IDEs for C/C++ this whole time, etc. I think the author is taking their personal journey and ex…

Right. The idea that Jira has been replaced made me laugh.

There's probably a crowd of people that want to move on to the next issue tracker flavour and that's fine but I've got work to do that isn't tool shuffling.

I'll use the one that integrates with so many of our systems and, though flawed, does a great job.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#73

Post by gryn »

ashneo76 wrote: post #68
0xCMP wrote: post #58

It's basically cause of mobile. Simple tools often involve using files. Using plain text files too. I don't think the pendulum will swing back the same. Files are a bad abstraction. Databases via HTTP APIs are far more reliable for using between all our devices. Syncing files without something like Git is very painful and for Git to be used the user themselves need to be able to handle the diff themselves correctly.…

Files are a great abstraction. They give you ownership, actual one, not the kind sold by apple or Netflix. Files give you freedom to share informatiin instead of being held in a database by some third party with different intentions than your freedoms. Please don't spread FUD

The issues of control and whether the file abstraction is that good are orthogonal.

I personally hold the view that it could have been better and that a more general notion of persistent object (not in the OOP sense) would've been better from a user facing pov.

The filesystem is doing more than one job, holding multiple responsibilities and imposing a way to present data and how to store it.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#74

Post by toomanyducks »

bitexploder wrote: post #44

First, this is an interesting take, and I think there is some kernels to consider in it. However, the author is painting very broadly with a large brush and smudging a lot. I have been happily using PyCharm/IntelliJ since what feels like the dawn of time. It is a perfectly complex and rewarding Fancy Tool. People still use IDEs for C/C++ this whole time, etc. I think the author is taking their personal journey and ex…

Personally, I think there's generalizations both ways here. Your experience doesn't map one-to-one with the author's, and the author's won't map to yours. Neither of them are absolute when applied outside of one life. I'd judge its accuracy by how well it resonates overall with people, and judging by its position on the front page and the sentiment of your last paragraph here, it resonates quite well.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#76

Post by nzmsv »

greatgoat420 wrote: post #37
steveklabnik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it’s all very opinionated. I think at this point I am borderline “I would rather have no bug tracker than Jira.” Issues isn’t perfect but it’s the best I’ve ever used.

I have never used Jira, could you say more about your feelings towards it? Currently we use an old in-house solution and are thinking of shifting.

Even when JIRA isn't slow: it has an absolutely horrid implementation of search that basically gives you a bunch of random issues in addition to what you are looking for (your search term appears nowhere in them). The exact set will randomly change. And it'll keep insisting on being helpful and turning your search into "smart" query and then failing because it is not valid.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#77

Post by dejj »

aflag wrote: post #4
drawkbox wrote: post #2

Good games should be easy to approach and difficult to master . Good tools should be easy to approach with the ability to customize and do more advanced actions, but never difficult Good tools and products encapsulate complexity but still allow access to it where needed. Good tools aim to simplify complexity, not complexify simplicity. Good engineers and product people make tools that aim to simplify. Make it approac…

I don't think good tools are necessarily easy to approach. Some of the best tools I know have quite a steep learning curve. A good tool is one that gives you power. It makes difficult and complicated tasks easy and simple. It may come with the cost of getting good with using the tool, but once you master it, you don't know how you lived without it.

Consider “affordances”: a chair may be used for sitting, or as a weapon, or as kindling etc. Likewise, a good tool is made to be approachable for the beginner, and open-endedly extensible for the expert. They’re the same material, but the hand movements of beginner and expert are very different. Analogously, consider how Simpsons episodes have 2 affordances: to be funny for children and for adults, each for their own reasons.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#78

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

bradknowles wrote: post #55
greatgoat420 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never used Jira, could you say more about your feelings towards it? Currently we use an old in-house solution and are thinking of shifting.

Jira is very sensitive to the configuration you build for it, and the hardware it is running on. The full configuration for Jira would make an Encyclopedia look small. Get that wrong (as many places do), and it is hard to use and dead-dog slow, at the best of times. But if you have a real Jira wizard who can configure things correctly, then it can easily be the fastest and easiest way to organize your development and…

On the one hand, I actually do agree with you. On the other hand, if nobody can use the tool right, then it's not the user at fault.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#79

Post by solraph »

jruthers wrote: post #72
bitexploder wrote: post #44

First, this is an interesting take, and I think there is some kernels to consider in it. However, the author is painting very broadly with a large brush and smudging a lot. I have been happily using PyCharm/IntelliJ since what feels like the dawn of time. It is a perfectly complex and rewarding Fancy Tool. People still use IDEs for C/C++ this whole time, etc. I think the author is taking their personal journey and ex…

Right. The idea that Jira has been replaced made me laugh. There's probably a crowd of people that want to move on to the next issue tracker flavour and that's fine but I've got work to do that isn't tool shuffling. I'll use the one that integrates with so many of our systems and, though flawed, does a great job.

That integration piece is key. The people who want to replace Atlassian tools usually focus one part of the suite (usually Jira or Confluence), but to replace them you all you need a set of tools that work together.

It's not just issue tracking, but alerting, issue management ITSM tools, source control, CI/CD, release management, documentation and I don't know what else that all need talk to each other and provide traceability from any point to another. You can do the integration yourself, but it's a gigantic PITA, and as the number of tools rises, the number of integrations you need to set up is going to rise terrifyingly fast.

I have a litany of complaints about the Atlassian suite, but none of the competitors have even have the services we need.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#80

Post by mtzet »

solraph wrote: post #79
jruthers wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The idea that Jira has been replaced made me laugh. There's probably a crowd of people that want to move on to the next issue tracker flavour and that's fine but I've got work to do that isn't tool shuffling. I'll use the one that integrates with so many of our systems and, though flawed, does a great job.

That integration piece is key. The people who want to replace Atlassian tools usually focus one part of the suite (usually Jira or Confluence), but to replace them you all you need a set of tools that work together. It's not just issue tracking, but alerting, issue management ITSM tools, source control, CI/CD, release management, documentation and I don't know what else that all need talk to each other and provide tr…

On the other hand, I find the integration between Atlassian tools to be pretty barebones. It feels very clear to me that Atlassian tools are really developed separately, with a separate jira task to integrate specific parts. There's no "coherency" to them.

You are right that it's difficult to replace the entire Atlassian suite. The thing about Atlassian is that when there's if there's a box to check on a feature list, they've made sure to check it. If you go around the office asking everyone what features they want, Atlassian is going to check all those boxes. That's pretty hard to compete with.

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