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My previous employer was a Java shop. We used JIRA Studio -- JIRA, Subversion, and other integrated tools, hosted by Atlassian -- and we were very happy with it.

My current employer is a .NET shop. What experiences (if any) do you have using JIRA Studio for .NET development? My concern is that certain parts of JIRA Studio may not work for .NET, such as FishEye online source code browsing.

A: 

I've been in a .Net shop (SharePoint) that used JIRA with Subversion but not the full JIRA Studio. We had absolutely no problems with JIRA in .Net.

Have you looked around their forums to see if anyone has posted any issues?

Tony Abrams
Thanks, yes, I have looked at their forums. Couldn't find anyone specifically using the full JIRA Studio for .NET development. Nothing on stackoverflow either.
trebormf
+1  A: 

Although Atlassian's applications are written in Java, you should have no issues using them in a .NET shop. The only concern that comes to mind is, should you ever want to write plug-ins, they would need to be written in Java. However, if you are using the hosted version (i.e. JIRA Studio) this may not be a consideration.

Tools like FishEye and Crucible will integrate with several popular source control systems (Subversion, Git, Perforce, Clearcase), so it just depends on whether your employer is using one of those systems or something else (Team Foundation Server, Visual SourceSafe, etc.) One thing to check if whether using the hosted version requires you to use their hosted install of Subversion as well. If so, it becomes more of an "all or nothing" decision.

In my case, we bought local install versions of all the Atlassian products and were able to use them seamlessly across Java, .NET, and Python development. For what it's worth, our team loved these tools and felt they were well worth the cost in terms of gained productivity.

Ben Hoffstein
Regarding source control, we currently use VSS and we know we can do better. We are looking at tool sets that integrate well together and will help us be more productive. It's going to be TFS or a combination of SVN with Atlassian and JetBrains tools.
trebormf
A: 

Two other important variables to consider are (1) your current employer and teammates culture, and (2) the support your employer has already paid to Microsoft, if any.

Personally, I love SVN+Jira. But when I worked later in a .Net shop, the department was pro-Microsft and they had some licenses. The were reluctant to any other thing.

So, we moved from nothing (no SCM, no testing, no collaboration tools) to Team Foundation Server + Team System.

My experiences:

  • Stay away of Sharepoint, even 2010. For that, install a good Wiki. XWiki is great for development workshops, highly customizable, you can build apps over it. If you want just something simple, go with MediaWiki (which is great).
  • TFS: if you plan to use Microsoft "big tools" complete ecosystem in a integrated way (and pay for it), it could make sense. Otherwise, stick to SVN, specifically if you plan to keep versioned binary files (as test plans, manuals, etc.). One thing I don't like is that TFS allows non-exclusive edits now, but only for texts files. SVN it is a lot simpler to install, use, and maintain.

Hope this helps.

Sebastian
Thanks for sharing your experiences and recommendations. Fortunately my team is very open-minded and eager to use the best tools for the job. At this point we've decided on self hosting and rolling out the new tools incrementally, starting with SVN.
trebormf
I'm glad to hear. :)Good luck with your project.
Sebastian
+1  A: 

If you are interested in specifics, Atlassian provided the following answers to my questions:

What features of the JIRA Studio — Subversion, JIRA, GreenHopper, Confluence, Bamboo, FishEye, Crucible — might have compatibility issues for .NET developers who work in C#, Visual Basic and ASP.NET?

The only Studio application that has known issues for .NET developers is Bamboo. Builds in Studio run in the Amazon EC2 and the default machine image we provide is RHEL. It is possible to create a custom Windows elastic image, but Amazon only supports Windows 2003 and 2008 at this time. It is also possible to use a standalone Bamboo instance with Studio, but this requires a separate Bamboo license.

How well does the Atlassian Connector for Visual Studio work with JIRA Studio?

It works normally, but currently only supports JIRA and Bamboo.

What have your customers said about using JIRA Studio for .NET development?

The majority of the feedback I've gotten from .NET developers is in regard to the Bamboo stuff mentioned in answer 1. All of the other apps are language agnostic (JIRA +GH, Confluence) or have .NET support built-in (FishEye, Crucible).

trebormf