according to Joshua Mostafa who wrote a blog on Bug tracking software: no contest a few weeks ago.
Here’s a quick snippet of his blog:
Unless there is some amazing open source system I have not heard about, there is nothing that meets the criteria of being full-featured, intuitive and staying out of your hair. You don’t want to spend time learning how to use such a system, you just want to get on with development and use it when you need to.
Jira is the only system that meets these criteria, IMHO. (Correct me if you know different.)
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Josh is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) developer and has recently co-authored a book about developing in Flex AdvancED Flex 3. He used to work on the server side developing in PHP and Perl, but now mostly develops rich UI for web applications using Flex.
As an RIA developer, how does Jira make your life easier?
It lets me “just get on with it” in day-to-day use, and has a whole array of sophisticated features and options if I want to configure it.
What are your favourite features about Jira?
Easy time estimate summing; clear view of dependencies and duplication; easily navigable.
Where did you first start using Jira?
At Abuzz Technologies, a touch screen kiosk development company. Abuzz kiosks are used as interactive maps in shopping centres and airports, custom self-service music CD burning solutions, photo printing, and many other applications.
Was there a particular issue or need that you were looking to fulfill when you started using Jira?
We started using Jira to get things structured, and to allow easier issue logging by non-techs, and oversight for producers. Jira was implemented at the level of the software department, which was in two teams: Flash / Flex, and Java. Both teams adopted it.
How was this managed prior to using Jira?
Prior to using Jira we were using Bugzilla, which was painful, time-consuming, and people tended to end up using pen and paper because it was such a nightmare to use.
Anything else I should be asking?
No, but here’s something to pass on the dev team … as I recall, one of the few gripes I had with Jira was the sub tasks. It’s too easy to fragment information (e.g. work done, estimates) between the main task and the sub-tasks. Surely if sub tasks are present, the main task should have those attributes disabled, or something.
I think that was fixed in Jira 3.11 which allowed sub-task progress to be shown within issues and also allowed for time tracking reports to include sub tasks.
Yes, my comments might well be out of date – I must be behind the curve with the latest developments. Good to hear of the improvement!
Thanks Josh!
Do you have a Jira success story you would like to share with us? We would love to hear from you at one of our upcoming Atlassian User Groups.