Hi @JasonPhan,
Thanks for engaging.
Let me ask one single question:
What very specifically is going to change to prevent this next time?
Multiple devs discovered and told Atlassian about this breaking change (breaking customers, apps, AND EVEN breaking Atlassian’s apps). It seemed inconceivable that it wouldn’t be delayed+fixed, then…once again, it just rolled out, like a curling stone, but gliding right off a metaphorical cliff.
Useful answers:
- “Vendors can now go to page https://stopbreakingchanges.atlassian.com and can halt the rollout. Click a button and halt it, describing the problem.” #SOLUTION
or - “Atlassian is building the above page and it will take three weeks. Then vendors with a commercial cloud app can use it.” #SOLUTION
or - Here is a way that would have prevented the last 20 breaking changes we are implementing and here are the details of what and when we are implementing. #SOLUTION
or - Send smoke signals from the top of Uluru, literally. (If that worked I’d book a flight for my intern right now.) #SOLUTION
or - Connect and Confluence Cloud is not a platform Atlassian takes seriously. That’s why Atlassian hasn’t built a single non-trivial feature using it (integrations don’t count here) in 8 years or EVER (except kind of Confluence Questions which is panned by most reviews). Even though we say we care about Cloud apps and migrating customers, we have no intention of seriously supporting this platform or putting resources to it. #AnHonestAnswer
Non-useful answers:
- “We care” (but give no specific actions. Caring is amazing, but those words without action cause a zero’ing out of trust and undermining goodwill Atlassian had built up).
- “We are discussing this internally and urgently” (but give no specific actions).
- “We know we need to do better.” ( You’re smart, we know you know, but there is a huge disconnect from knowing to action here. Things are getting less reliable not better.)
please continue to let us know how we can do better.
I love the question. Please show vendors there is a reason for us to answer the question, backed by action. Have a look at the last three incident reports. I’m looking forward to the incident report for this one.
When vendors say ‘this new change we see on EAP will break customers, vendors and in this case even Atlassian apps’ then just very very simply please don’t roll out that change.
The bar is pretty low. I wish I had a large team of talented developers (vendors) that paid ME (marketplace) so they could find bugs I created. I know I’d listen and leverage their expertise. To do otherwise squanders a valuable resource.
The fact that this happened last week and happens quite often since 2018 shows just how far away the Confluence Cloud and ecosystem teams are from demonstrating interest or ability to provide platform stability. Words are a great start, but it’s now been years with continuing degradation from the ecosystem perspective for Cloud.
Right now Atlassian is absolutely on track to follow SalesForce : “Salesforce was rated the Most Dreaded Tech tool for the Year in 2015”. It might take a couple more years of this trajectory for Cloud app dev (not server), but it is on track and imminent. I think the teams causing this chaos know it too. What I’m trying to figure out is who, if anyone, really cares?
SF turned their title. How? Real effort, leadership, resources and especially dogfooding, none of which is apparent to vendors by Atlassian currently. And the dogfooding specifically is non-existent for Confluece Cloud. In fact it is decreasing (I’m happy to back all of this up with specifics, I’ve already done so but will limit the novella for a later time and depending on certain outcomes).
I’ve been a huge Atlassian fan, supporter longer than anyone on this thread. I’ve ‘probably’ written more code for free, used by more Confluence customers than anyone(not the most, just the most used that no one ever paid for - especially once Atlassian bundled some of my tools, for free, into Confluence). I care about Atlassian a lot. It feels I care more than many Atlassians.
I care so much I will GIVE Atlassian a fork of a very serious, very profitable app that took thousands of hours to write and recreate every time Atlassian breaks more of the platform (Fabric as one perfect example). And I would do this so Atlassian will have one single real Connect app on Confluence to call their own. I believe that could be a first step to making the platform stable, richer, giving customers the quality they deserve while promoting actual partnership and caring.
Every two or three years now almost everyone we vendors interface with at Atlassian rotates out, leaves or is promoted, etc. Similar messages come and go from different people to vendors that predated them all. Before hitting repeat it might be useful to search back for how many dozens of times the same things have been said since 2012. Or even just read the most recent Atlassian incident reports, but double check the comments which are required for accuracy.
I think most all the people on these teams are smart, talented, honest, hardworking team members. Some are even truly excellent. However, your teams are clearly either understaffed or unmotivated to affect improvement from our perspective. Otherwise, I think someone would be writing integration tests and running them? And it is not because Atlassian’s share of vendor revenue from the MarketPlace vendors can’t pay for the whole party.
I’ll end this on a positive note. I do my best to create solutions. I’ll never ask anyone to improve without sharing ideas, some potential roadmap or brainstorming together. To circumvent the above issue on its ~hundredth re-occurrence I created the Cloud EAP idea (not rocket science I know, rather obvious) and opened a ticket, quickly supported by dozens of vendors. After being told by Atlassian and other vendors it wouldn’t happen, Shrey and a few other Atlassians that cared actually pushed it through. https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-65807
So thank you for that win Confluence Cloud team and ecosystem team! It was a huge improvement. Now let’s together follow up that singular significant improvement with a second one that is meaningful to the same degree. I’ll cross my fingers for a third, but let’s just start with one.
If anything I’ve commented on above is inaccurate, please feel free to correct me with specifics. I’d love to be wrong about almost all of it.
Cheers,
Brendan