ManVsRecession Posted January 24, 2013 Author Share Posted January 24, 2013 Depending on where you are in the country, that might be doable. The easiest way to check is to search for the skill set and location on jobserve.com to see what others are offering. My one piece of advice on hiring programmers is not to assume that 20 years of experience makes someone any good at it. It's very easy to have 1 year's experience 20 times, if you see what I mean. Finding people that can build something solid ab-initio is really difficult. HI BlueCat.. sorry for the slow reply. Thank you for the good advice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthamptonBear Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 (edited) Oops, too late to edit my previous post, but just to add :- The customer is paying for a prototype / proof of concept, rather than the full product, so I am able to do most of the development myself at this stage. Given the risk they are taking, I gave them a very good price on this prototype, and first refusal on the full system if they decide to go for it. The need for a proper dev team is still there, but I have May-ish to find the right people.. I'm currently thinking one highly experienced rock-star engineer with the specialist skills I need, and one hotshot young graduate/PhD.. maybe 100k between the two of them?. Again I have zero experience putting together a proper development team, but I have friends who do, so I'm soliciting all the advice I can find on this. It's all starting to get rather exciting to be honest haven't read all the thread, not aware of your background - but I'd offer this advice, get people who write maintainable code rather than 'stars'. If you do - it will be maintainable (obviously), but as by-products it will be pretty efficient, pretty quickly developed. By aiming at maintainability, the other aspects slide into place fairly well. Concentrating on development speed, etc will end up with bad side-effects normally. Steve McConnell - Code Complete - you should buy this and enjoy it! It's a very funny look at real world programming combined with academic studies backing it up. Plenty of pointers, checklists for coders, managers, customers etc. Anecdotally, I've worked with people who were always on the bleeding edge, writing in/for new languages/platforms - and a few of them have never FINISHED a project, they only did the earlier aspects of the coding and then moved to next exciting project. I often found their code hard to work with because they gave no thought to themselves, let alone others having to change it. Couple of things I remember from the book - Humility is most important aspect of a great programmer and having a big desk in a quiet room is the single best thing that someone can provide to increase an individual's productivity! http://en.wikipedia....i/Code_Complete http://www.amazon.co.../dp/0735619670/ Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity Reap the benefits of collaborative development Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors Exploit opportunities to refactor—or evolve—code, and do it safely Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project Debug problems quickly and effectively Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project I'll look forward (?) to the torrent of disagreeing replies! Edited January 24, 2013 by NorthamptonBear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManVsRecession Posted January 26, 2013 Author Share Posted January 26, 2013 haven't read all the thread, not aware of your background - but I'd offer this advice, get people who write maintainable code rather than 'stars'. If you do - it will be maintainable (obviously), but as by-products it will be pretty efficient, pretty quickly developed. By aiming at maintainability, the other aspects slide into place fairly well. Concentrating on development speed, etc will end up with bad side-effects normally. Steve McConnell - Code Complete - you should buy this and enjoy it! It's a very funny look at real world programming combined with academic studies backing it up. Plenty of pointers, checklists for coders, managers, customers etc. Anecdotally, I've worked with people who were always on the bleeding edge, writing in/for new languages/platforms - and a few of them have never FINISHED a project, they only did the earlier aspects of the coding and then moved to next exciting project. I often found their code hard to work with because they gave no thought to themselves, let alone others having to change it. Couple of things I remember from the book - Humility is most important aspect of a great programmer and having a big desk in a quiet room is the single best thing that someone can provide to increase an individual's productivity! http://en.wikipedia....i/Code_Complete http://www.amazon.co.../dp/0735619670/ Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity Reap the benefits of collaborative development Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors Exploit opportunities to refactor—or evolve—code, and do it safely Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project Debug problems quickly and effectively Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project I'll look forward (?) to the torrent of disagreeing replies! Good stuff.. Thanks! Thankfully I had a good chat with someone this week about overseeing the technical side of the project. Too early for either of us to commit, but the person is my first choice and we'll be talking more as the prototype takes shape. This means I can concentrate on the prototype itself for now, and worry about hiring later. I'll I'll look at the Code Complete book. I remember my brother had a copy and I thought it looked good at the time. I've been looking into agile development too... seems like a sensible way for me to go about things. Its a fairly simple idea which automates a slow and difficult manual task, and by it's nature I can build it piece by piece. Next job for me, a two week crash course in Javascript, HTML5 and PHP.. CodeAcademy and Derek Banas' youtube channel will be my home for a fortnight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eek Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 Good stuff.. Thanks! Thankfully I had a good chat with someone this week about overseeing the technical side of the project. Too early for either of us to commit, but the person is my first choice and we'll be talking more as the prototype takes shape. This means I can concentrate on the prototype itself for now, and worry about hiring later. I'll I'll look at the Code Complete book. I remember my brother had a copy and I thought it looked good at the time. I've been looking into agile development too... seems like a sensible way for me to go about things. Its a fairly simple idea which automates a slow and difficult manual task, and by it's nature I can build it piece by piece. Next job for me, a two week crash course in Javascript, HTML5 and PHP.. CodeAcademy and Derek Banas' youtube channel will be my home for a fortnight I would look at other options as well as PHP. I know of many clients that are happy to accept either Java or Asp.net applications (some will also accept Ruby) but many just cannot install php based applications on their network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrtickle Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 Anecdotally, I've worked with people who were always on the bleeding edge, writing in/for new languages/platforms - and a few of them have never FINISHED a project, they only did the earlier aspects of the coding and then moved to next exciting project. I work with people like that right now. I spend my time following their code around with a bucket and shovel. They get all the glory and credit. Most bosses are eager for them to pull the wool over their eyes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe_ Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 I work with people like that right now. I spend my time following their code around with a bucket and shovel. They get all the glory and credit. Most bosses are eager for them to pull the wool over their eyes. Seems like a common thing, I have colleagues like that. No documentation at all, no comments - And that's if I'm lucky to find an up to date version of the code. The bosses are not developers so it goes unnoticed. At first, I would clean the code and document it as I went along, but then I thought why should I waste my time doing their job when I'm not getting paid any more for it? Also, if a developer writes unmaintainable code, it keeps them in a job for life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthamptonBear Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Seems like a common thing, I have colleagues like that. No documentation at all, no comments - And that's if I'm lucky to find an up to date version of the code. The bosses are not developers so it goes unnoticed. At first, I would clean the code and document it as I went along, but then I thought why should I waste my time doing their job when I'm not getting paid any more for it? Also, if a developer writes unmaintainable code, it keeps them in a job for life. Unfortunately rings true... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porca misèria Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 I work with people like that right now. I spend my time following their code around with a bucket and shovel. They get all the glory and credit. Most bosses are eager for them to pull the wool over their eyes. In these days of the 'net, check out a candidate's portfolio online. If they aren't involved in at least one open source project you've heard of, why not, and what are they hiding? As for finding the right people, it helps if you're flexible. If you insist on physical bums-on-seats you're hugely limiting yourself. And if you want to extend what the budget will buy, someone who finds you credible might take lower pay in return for a stake in the business. In fact, that might be a useful test of whether they're committed and taking you seriously, vs ready to cut-and-run at the drop of a hat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozza Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 (edited) In these days of the 'net, check out a candidate's portfolio online. If they aren't involved in at least one open source project you've heard of, why not, and what are they hiding? As for finding the right people, it helps if you're flexible. If you insist on physical bums-on-seats you're hugely limiting yourself. And if you want to extend what the budget will buy, someone who finds you credible might take lower pay in return for a stake in the business. In fact, that might be a useful test of whether they're committed and taking you seriously, vs ready to cut-and-run at the drop of a hat. Open source project involvement is a zero indicator regarding someones skill levels, I know many expert software engineers who don't contribute to open source as they either don't have the time or the inclination or strangely enough they simply see their job as their job and their free time as separate. When i employ programmers and developers i could care less what open source projects they are involved in as the project success gives me no indicator of that persons involvement and additionally no indicator of the level or quality of code The second part of your post however i fully agree with, bums on seats and time on desk is in no way related to how good someone is Edited February 5, 2013 by Rozza Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gadget Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 Open source project involvement is a zero indicator regarding someones skill levels, I know many expert software engineers who don't contribute to open source as they either don't have the time or the inclination or strangely enough they simply see their job as their job and their free time as separate. True. You see it in a lot of jobs specs these days, asking about your Open Source contributions. Feel tempted to ask them what projects they manage in their spare time... I may well do some coding on my own time but that's likely to be learning a new language / playing about with my own little project rather than bug-fixing for an Open Source project... I suppose it shows enthusiasm (negatively correlated to experience i'm sure) When i employ programmers and developers i could care less what open source projects they are involved in as the project success gives me no indicator of that persons involvement and additionally no indicator of the level or quality of code To be fair these days with github you can go and check out the code they've checked in... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porca misèria Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 Open source project involvement is a zero indicator regarding someones skill levels, I know many expert software engineers who don't contribute to open source as they either don't have the time or the inclination or strangely enough they simply see their job as their job and their free time as separate. When i employ programmers and developers i could care less what open source projects they are involved in as the project success gives me no indicator of that persons involvement and additionally no indicator of the level or quality of code The second part of your post however i fully agree with, bums on seats and time on desk is in no way related to how good someone is Do I detect a whiff of uvam acerbam? Open source projects are out there in the open: something you or anyone can check in full detail. Both the project as a whole, and an individual developer's role within it. Most non-open-source projects I've encountered couldn't stand that level of scrutiny. They're simply too bad, on many levels. Not just bad, truly dire: people involved would be expect to be laughed out of town if scrutinised by a competent developer who cares about what they're doing. And I've seen a lot of software over 30 years in the industry! In my experience of UK industry (less so in Silicon Valley), the inevitability of bad software is built into the whole environment. Companies see developers as junior bods: a few years at the sharp end between graduating and moving into a 'real' job with money and respect, and a suit[1]. Like, management or marketing. Anyone who cares about software and wants to do a decent job quickly gets alienated and retreats, either into a different area or into open source communities. The Suits - companies who can sell to people with budgets (like governments or banks) - are culturally incompatible with developers capable of delivering. FWIW, my own open source work has taken me from absolute poverty in 2003 to £half-a-million in 2013. Not in the same league as a top entrepreneur, but not too bad for someone who manifestly can't sell. [1] How old is too old to be a developer? Anecdotally a former colleague who was one of the best developers I knew moved to one of our biggest software houses[2], and they were rather concerned he was getting too old for a developer role and should be moving into a Suit. At age 28. [2] Logica . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porca misèria Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 To be fair these days with github you can go and check out the code they've checked in... The code is just one element of the job. What expertise and depth does someone show in the developer fora? The support fora? What attitude do they show? How far does their interest extend beyond their own code? Are they a good mentor to newcomers showing an interest? Do they take non-code tasks like documentation and testing seriously? What areas of code beyond just writing it are they involved in: top-down (the architect), bottom up (bugfixing)? Maybe someone takes all those roles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isg Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 In these days of the 'net, check out a candidate's portfolio online. If they aren't involved in at least one open source project you've heard of, why not, and what are they hiding? A social life perhaps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CasualBear Posted February 15, 2013 Share Posted February 15, 2013 Open source project involvement is a zero indicator regarding someones skill levels, I know many expert software engineers who don't contribute to open source as they either don't have the time or the inclination or strangely enough they simply see their job as their job and their free time as separate. When i employ programmers and developers i could care less what open source projects they are involved in as the project success gives me no indicator of that persons involvement and additionally no indicator of the level or quality of code The second part of your post however i fully agree with, bums on seats and time on desk is in no way related to how good someone is The way I see it, unless you are working in some clean room environment, there is almost no reason why you wouldn't have had some exposure to open source. Given this, even the interaction on mailing lists, issue trackers is interesting as in belies the candidates ability to collaborate with people without direction of a manager. In fact, working at a place with a real rockstar & NIH culture I would take any open source involvement as a nice indicator that they can read other peoples code and reuse it, rather than write their own the whole time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CasualBear Posted February 15, 2013 Share Posted February 15, 2013 (edited) Duplicate Edited February 15, 2013 by CasualBear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManVsRecession Posted February 18, 2013 Author Share Posted February 18, 2013 Some good discussions here.. thanks! Things looking good so far. We've got some interest from a second customer, which is promising given we haven't even started building the prototype yet. Not actually surprising TBH, given our rock-star bizdev person but a little extra validation is never a bad thing and it would be great to get a full paying customer signed up. In the meantime, I'm enrolled on the New Enterprise Allowance scheme, currently in the initial 8 week approval period, so I'm still having to choose between catching a bus into town to go networking, or eating something more interesting than porridge and noodles (not at the same time!). Role on NEA and working tax-credits! So... the score is still Man 1 : Recession 2, but we're playing strongly and getting shots on goal. It's only a matter of time.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozza Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 The way I see it, unless you are working in some clean room environment, there is almost no reason why you wouldn't have had some exposure to open source. Given this, even the interaction on mailing lists, issue trackers is interesting as in belies the candidates ability to collaborate with people without direction of a manager. In fact, working at a place with a real rockstar & NIH culture I would take any open source involvement as a nice indicator that they can read other peoples code and reuse it, rather than write their own the whole time. Thats fair enough, my point wasn't so much to say someones open source experience is worthless, it was to say someones lack of open source experience doesn't mean they aren't good. I probably didn't word it so well originally Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozza Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 So... the score is still Man 1 : Recession 2, but we're playing strongly and getting shots on goal. It's only a matter of time.... Finding this all very interesting, good luck with it all, if you manage to make it all pay off you will hopefully be in a very strong position having built everything up during a bad time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManVsRecession Posted February 28, 2013 Author Share Posted February 28, 2013 (edited) Finding this all very interesting, good luck with it all, if you manage to make it all pay off you will hopefully be in a very strong position having built everything up during a bad time Thanks Rozza! Quick question for you guys here. Does anyone have any good tips / negotiating strategies for buying a domain name from it's current owner? It's not being used at the moment.. in fact I'm ot sure they've ever used it, though it's been registered for years. It comes up for renewal later this year, so I could always register for the auction when it comes up, but by the looks of it it could end up in the £2k-£4k range on the open market. I'd like to put in an offer early, hopefully for no more than £400 ish, but obviously the cheaper the better. And no.. I'm not telling anyone what the domain name is yet! lol Edited February 28, 2013 by ManVsRecession Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eek Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Thanks Rozza! Quick question for you guys here. Does anyone have any good tips / negotiating strategies for buying a domain name from it's current owner? It's not being used at the moment.. in fact I'm ot sure they've ever used it, though it's been registered for years. It comes up for renewal later this year, so I could always register for the auction when it comes up, but by the looks of it it could end up in the £2k-£4k range on the open market. I'd like to put in an offer early, hopefully for no more than £400 ish, but obviously the cheaper the better. And no.. I'm not telling anyone what the domain name is yet! lol Don't assume it will be available. I've owned a few domains for long term projects and while there may not be a website against them it doesn't mean that they are not being used and they will just be renewed when the time comes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManVsRecession Posted March 5, 2013 Author Share Posted March 5, 2013 Don't assume it will be available. I've owned a few domains for long term projects and while there may not be a website against them it doesn't mean that they are not being used and they will just be renewed when the time comes. hi Eek.. yes, I realise that. There are actually three domains that would fit the bill. I'm watching all three domains through Godaddy's domain monitoring service, so if they do come up I'll at least get a stab at the auction. If they don't, then I'll need to wait until I'm funded and able to buy one on the open market. So really there's no particular urgency..I can go with something else in the meantime. My enterprise prototype is my priority right now. If I get that right I should be in a position to raise funding and make the owner(s) an offer they'll probably be happy with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eek Posted April 22, 2013 Share Posted April 22, 2013 another option would be to get a domain hack url where you build a word up using the suffix as part of the name. I've just managed to pick up erro.rs and custome.rs for a couple of side projects for £25 each. Granted they are not the cheapest domain names but its a cheap way to start out with a descriptive domain name at little cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManVsRecession Posted May 9, 2013 Author Share Posted May 9, 2013 They're pretty good for a £25 each I'm sorted for a domain name now... I took the first part of one of my domain ideas, the second part of another, and ended up with a better name and the .com for the basic GoDaddy fee. I'd been due to start building the prototype by now with my client, but that's been a little delayed.. hopefully starting soon, so in the meantime I've been focusing on talking to potential customers and working out how my thing can help. I'd originally been planing an enterprise application similar to the prototype I'm going to build, but as I've researched the market I've realised there's greater potential for one of my planned spin-off applications, aimed at consumers. The thing will be free to the end user (or maybe a free and premium versions), with revenues coming from businesses who will pay to engage the users and access insights / intelligence generated by the thing. So far, feedback has been good, not just sniffs of interest.. these are definitely nuzzles.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManVsRecession Posted June 10, 2013 Author Share Posted June 10, 2013 (edited) I though it was time for a little update. Things are moving along nicely it seems. I started the prototype project, and that's going well. It's a great client in a high-tech area, and is proving to be a good development partner. The thing will be used by quite a lot of employees, and it's easy to garner constant feedback over the watercooler. I've also been out scoping new customers. Nothing sealed yet, but there's definitely potential as there's major changes going on in the industry and the broader landscape that means people are open to new ideas. My product offering is evolving somewhat too.. Started as an enterprise A. I thought about doing an off-the-shelf A, but realised it would be too expensive to develop so spun off a part to be B, aimed at consumers. Then my prototype client wanted a change to their A prototype, so it's more of a C prototype. I've been gaining some interest from people, including investors, for the consumer facing B, but then when promoting the commercial benefits of sponsoring B to a potential client, they were more interested in the underlying technology, and we ended up discussing something that looks a lot more like the enterprise A! Alongside all this, I've been networking to find developers, project managers, back-end, server suppliers, and potential tech co-founders. I'm in London which helps. There's a really vibrant start-up scene going on right now, and networking events galore. So, I reckon it's Man 2 : Recession 2, just... Edited June 10, 2013 by ManVsRecession Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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