Because I've Got Issues ...

I have to hand it to the guys over at Atlassian, JIRA is a pretty killer app (although I know now that Love is the REAL Killer App:) ).

I've worked with JIRA for, well, a really long time. I've always worked in companies where you needed to wear many hats, and I'm one of those developers that doesn't get snobby when I'm asked to step outside of my comfy Java home and help out the IT folks. So it's usually me that gets those prize winning projects like migrating forums, internationalizing wikis, or looking for new software to streamline our internal processes. I've spun JIRA around the dance floor several times, XSLT'ing crazy aggregate reports from XML backup formats, writing plugins to support externalizing JIRA data, customizing schemes, changing workflows. Every time, the same epiphany gets me - JIRA just works, exactly how you would think it should.

While some who are not so in the know might think, "Gretchen, you simpleton, it's a series of instructions to a processor, of course that's how it works". But those of us who bend software over and around daily know that few apps are actually written with quality, exceptional exception handling and in an intuitive manner that doesn't require years of higher learning and great tolerance for pain to adopt. (This is a very familiar concept particularly for those who use a certain unreasonable operating system).

This time, we need to move Mondrian's tracker issues from their original home on Sourceforge over to JIRA, which is our tool of choice for managing work and issues at Pentaho. With an assist from my other favorite killer app, Kettle, it has been a dreamy couple of days putting together the pieces to get Mondrian's issues to their new home. OK, maybe not dreamy, but certainly pain free.

Kudos, my Atlassian friends. You Aussies got it going on.