Comments on: Pioneers vs. Planners

By: ben

ben — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:59:22 +0000

While I think anyone in their right mind prefers new over maintenance (seriously – have you ever met someone who was psyched to do maintenance code?) I think Ryan ran into big-project-101. Anyone who’s done any development knows that 95% of the project takes 50% of the time and the last 5% take the remaining 50%. This isn’t because his freelancers suck, or because you need to have a PhD in psychobabble to hire people. It’s because the initial development work was one item and adding features that weren’t thought of during that initial push take a lot longer because there’s an above average chance the code wasn’t written to support these new features which leads to lots of refactoring. There are a ton of headaches that come with adding a new feature to a mature project. It’s going to take longer.

Ryan didn’t solve his freelancer problem – he just found a cheaper labor market. His urgency required beckon-and-call and his budget didn’t support that. Of course – I have tons of respect for people who aren’t willing to partner with developers… that’s going to get him great results (not). A hired gun is a hired gun – don’t expect them to give a shit about your project if you treat them that way. Anyone running a software company that doesn’t think a developer should be part of the core team is ridiculous and overly greedy in my book.

By: Danger

Danger — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:10:15 +0000

This really struck a chord with me. A while back my wife had me take the Keirsey temperament sorter (aka the Myers-Brigg’s test) and I registered as an INTP. It turns out there’s a lot of us freelance developers who fall into that category.

One of the most striking things about folks with this personality type (as found in the book “Please Understand Me II”) is that they love to start new projects but should not be asked to maintain them once there’s nothing left to build.

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:46:31 +0000

Hey Ben,

Interesting point. However, the decision I made was largely based on cash flow. If DropSend was bringing in a significant amount of cash, we would’ve stayed local.

Have fun at RailsConf – looks like it’s going to be a blast.

Kind regards,
Ryan

By: Standard Deviation » Blog Archive » A Freelance Programmer’s Manifesto

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 06:27:57 +0000

[...] (For the background that inspired this post, see here, here and here.) [...]

By: warren

warren — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:58:57 +0000

@topfunky: the unpredictability is what makes it fun! you say that like it’s a bad thing…

Sure cashflow can be lumpy and I crap myself when the mortgage payment is due, but I try and book work weeks ahead, so I’m no worse off than any average Joe Wage-slave whose job gets offshored with two weeks’ notice.

I agree with Ben, I’ll take fun, new projects over making sense of old, crusty, bordering-on-unmaintainable code written by someone’s nephew.

Having said that, I am more than happy to support and resolve issues for my clients where the software delivered deviates from the agreed specification (be it a bug or otherwise). I’d consider a freelancer who refused to rectify defects like this as a priority issue totally unprofessional.

What I won’t do though is be at a past client’s beck and call 24/7 to add or tweak new features, unless they are willing to pay a retainer to ensure my availability.

I’m not their employee, I’m an independent supplier of services. If they have jealousy issues because I’m “seeing” other clients, then we need to re-examine our relationship.

Zed Shaw sums it up best:
“I don’t want to code for someone because they treat me like their bitch” (http://zedshaw.com/blog/announcing_my_retirement.html)