I don't do any freelance yet (looking to though). I am very backend focused - database design, SQL, Django, server administration. If I landed a freelance gig, I would definitely consider paying someone to make a prettier looking front end than I would (letting me focus on what i am good at). Obviously depends on the requirements.
You, the freelance programmer, would you pay someone else to write code for you?
11–18 of 18 posts
Re: You, the freelance programmer, would you pay someone else to write code for you?
#12I wouldn't mind outsourcing some of my work but there are usually factors that stop me:
* Cost: Good experienced devs in a timezone I want to be awake for to talk with cost more than I can afford to pay (generalizing here)
* Management overhead: Good communication, writing good specs, etc such that a dev can complete the work in the way I want it done can be just as time consuming if not more so than doing it myself
* Establishing trust: Farming out work when in crunch mode to an unproven dev and hoping for the best doesn't sit well with me. I would want to establish a working relationship starting with code projects that are small and don't care if they come back crappy (which is almost none of my work at the moment)
* NDAs: Companies generally don't like you granting access to their codebase to people they did not vet/hire themselves
Re: You, the freelance programmer, would you pay someone else to write code for you?
#13I wouldn't mind outsourcing some of my work but there are usually factors that stop me: * Cost: Good experienced devs in a timezone I want to be awake for to talk with cost more than I can afford to pay (generalizing here) * Management overhead: Good communication, writing good specs, etc such that a dev can complete the work in the way I want it done can be just as time consuming if not more so than doing it myself…
You have pointed indeed real situations about outsourcing to a programmer. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Re: You, the freelance programmer, would you pay someone else to write code for you?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have right, but this triggers me to the other side of a programmer perspective. Thinking from a test driven development, and creating parts that are easy to mock and test, couldn't be the outsource-process mindset be a one more reason to better write code handling the dependency of the other parts of the system? This way, i think that some critical parts can be easily mocked up in the outsourced code, so the comp…
Mocking the behavior of your code may be as hard as writing the actual code. I mean, you are right, you can feed an outsource code with fakey, but covering all test cases in the mocked up code needs a lot of work which drives us to the point I mentioned earlier: You have to teach them your code. You are right, though, at some point that aiming to create parts that are easy to mock and test is a good practice. But her…
You have right. From what you are saying, i understand that in some ideal conditions, meeting THAT coder might help you a lot. Otherwise, it will just be a loss of time and money. Thank you for your thoughts!
Re: You, the freelance programmer, would you pay someone else to write code for you?
#15I've been considering looking for a freelancer to help me on my current project. I'm working on a web2py project and am fairly quick at the backend development, but I am very new to js and am struggling with a lot of the front end stuff I want to do. Part of me wants to just hire that done, but the other part of me thinks I need to tough it out so I learn more.
I understand. Well than, hope he will do a right job for you!
Re: You, the freelance programmer, would you pay someone else to write code for you?
#16In my experience effectively outsourcing of work requires clearly written, tight specifications with exacting testing criteria spelt out. In my experience the combined effort of writing accurate specs and then handling the communication with outsourced programmers is a bigger workload than just writing it myself.
I understand. So based on your experience, don't you think that writing down the specs and the expected return, combined with finding a smart programmer available to write code, could be a winning decision? I mean, there is nothing in this process that can be done to improve your efficiency and still be a win-win deal?
Finding "smart" programmers is very hard. As @lastofus points out communication and management effort eats into the potential gains.
If you are really serious about leverage then look at MBSE/MDD/MDE/DSL technologies. That is, tools that will take formal specifications and generate code. The old 80:20 rule applies here too, as much as 80% of the code can be generated automatically, the rest by either yourself or the very well paid sufficiently smart programmer(s).
Re: You, the freelance programmer, would you pay someone else to write code for you?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand. So based on your experience, don't you think that writing down the specs and the expected return, combined with finding a smart programmer available to write code, could be a winning decision? I mean, there is nothing in this process that can be done to improve your efficiency and still be a win-win deal?
Finding "smart" programmers is very hard. As @lastofus points out communication and management effort eats into the potential gains. If you are really serious about leverage then look at MBSE/MDD/MDE/DSL technologies. That is, tools that will take formal specifications and generate code. The old 80:20 rule applies here too, as much as 80% of the code can be generated automatically, the rest by either yourself or the…
Thank you for your thoughts. In fact, I am more interested into the how can i make this process efficient in the real world, as a scallable service, without competing with the other freelancing sites that offers full projects development. I am more connected to a programmer to programmer service perspective (getCode.org)
Re: You, the freelance programmer, would you pay someone else to write code for you?
#18I (and many others) do this. There are a ton of sites to help us do, but I think the most popular are Odesk and Elance.
I'd stay away from those types of sites, instead try: http://letsworkshop.com