Jobin Kuruvilla, an experienced Jira consultant and plugin developer, set out on the ambitious task to write a detailed and thorough book about Jira plugin development. The result? A well crafted 450+ page book that starts by introducing the reader to Atlassian’s plugin framework and ends with useful recipes usually gained only by weathered experience. It’s a great read for Atlassian plugin developers at all levels.
Bits of Goodness
The Jira Development Cookbook is filled with bits of great information that will not only teach the reader how to build great plugins, but also educate them on how Jira is built. Jobin walks us through the various components used in the Jira technology stack and exposes the architecture that you normally wouldn’t be able to see. Everything is laid out logically by order of interest to most Jira plugin developers.
Some of the more interesting topics Jobin covers are:
- Programming Workflows – workflow conditions, validators, and post functions
- Gadgets – introduction to OpenSocial gadgets and how to write them
- Searching with JQL and managing filters programmatically
- Issue CRUD basics
- UI customization – I found this very useful since these are common tasks many developers are asked to do
Jobin also gives us a run through of how to access Jira remotely through the SOAP and REST APIs. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t cover Jira 5.0 which has a much more fully featured REST API. Lastly, I really appreciated Jobin’s recipes, some of which cover:
- Writing services, scheduled tasks, and listeners
- Customizing email content
- Adding new module types
- Creating issues and comments from email
Summary
I really enjoyed Jobin’s Jira Development Cookbook. It’s great for beginning and advanced Jira plugin developers. The publisher’s copy editing is a bit rough, but the breadth and depth of the content is great. Highly recommended!
Jira Development Cookbook, by Jobin Kuruvilla, published by Packt Publishing in November 2011. ISBN 978-1-84968-180-3. You can get it from Amazon.com.