[nycphp-talk] OT: Freelance PHP gig Not Paying up!
Jerry B. Altzman
jbaltz at altzman.com
Thu Dec 22 12:06:57 EST 2005
On 12/22/2005 7:20 AM, Cliff Hirsch wrote:
> On the flip side, I occasionally would like to outsource "pieces" but am
> always nervous unless I have a REALLY concrete spec. And most often, by
> the time I have written a spec to the level of detail required, I've
> written the code. It would be wonderful to be able to hand over a
> "fuzzy" spec. and allow the contractor to develop open-ended based on it
Having done a lot of this type of work, typically even if the spec is
detailed, there are plenty of other little details that you're leaving
out, so there's still value in sending it out.
> and an interactive process. Is there any way to do this without getting
It's always an interactive process, unless your specs are written in
stone by the finger of Dog and handed down from atop a smoke-covered
desert mountain. (In fact, the idea of iterative specs is the
cornerstone of all those "agile" software development dogmata.)
> royally screwed other than trust and faith?
If the guy is "good", trust and faith is enough and the contract is
superfluous. He does the work, and you pay him.
If the guy is "bad", trust and faith *and* a contract won't be enough in
any case.
Much of the contracting world is based on trust; you live and die by it.
I've recently been an observer to a dispute between a contractor and his
client; the contractor simply failed to deliver repeatedly.
I will decline to make further commentary other than to say that I was
neither the client nor the contractor.
//jbaltz
--
jerry b. altzman jbaltz at altzman.com KE3ML
thank you for contributing to the heat death of the universe.
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