Good stuff mike... And not just the part about me being dead right :) -----Original Message----- From: Mike Kear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 8:53 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Client asked me: "Why you use coldfusion?"
Mark's dead right. Make sure you know what the scope of your job is, and that you can do it for that money. IF you're pretty impoverished, $3500 can sound like a lot, but you really do need to work out how much per hour that represents for you. You might be able to dash this job out with just bolting together some components that are already written, do the job inside 10 hours and you're making $350/hour. Well done. On the other hand you probably arent going to be able to do all that stuff in 10 hours. At the risk of belabouring the point, perhaps I can tell you about how I learned this lesson the hard way, even though it already made sense before that. I guess i just lost touch with my senses or something. "I just need a login done, that's all, and a couple of other functions," the client said. "A couple of days work, maximum," he assured me. Like a bloody fool I didnt get him to spell out what "... a couple of other functions" meant. I gave him a price, he accepted it and since I had a couple of days before i was going to start another project, I figured it would be a good little earner in what would otherwise have been dead time. When i started on the actual work, I downloaded what had been done up to that point, only to discover the previous developer on this job had left a HEAP of things non working. Lots of pretty forms, that looked terrific, had all the validation etc but didnt have any action pages. I figured this whole project was a dead duck unless someone (me i guessed) wrote all the processing. Then i learned that a lot of the validation was pretty dodgy too and didnt do what it was supposed to do. So I had to fix that up too. Instead of being a quick little two-day job in between assignments, the job turned into a 3 month after-hours-and-weekends project. Things just kept on popping up that needed doing, and like a fool I said I'd do them, and when the client said he couldnt afford any more development money, i was stupid enough to say well he can pay me one day when he gets some income coming from the site. I did the arithmetic after i finally finished the job and worked out that i had earned the princely sum of 50cents an hour unless he came good on the promise to pay me more when he had some. He gave me a lovely hamper at Christmas time, which was wonderful, but I'm still waiting for more money. (And i know who the previous developer was who left so many thing undone and he's going to get a bloody nose when i meet him next!!0 I think lots of people either see situations like this in time and avoid them, or learn about them the hard way, but the important thing is that everyone understands they're going to come up against it sooner or later and its time to be hard nosed about it. You need to fully understand what you're getting into and how much it's going to cost you in money terms and in hours. And make sure before you do anything that you and the client are in agreement about what you're actually going to build. If you dont agree BEFORE you start on what you're going to do, you run the risk of seeing your time soaked up by the project. $3500 might be a terrific price for you if you take a couple of days to do the job. But what if it takes you 3 months? Is $3500 still a good price for working for 3 months? Thats my advice - before you do anything, KNOW for sure and have it written down and agreed . what you are going to do. More specific is better than less specific. And have a pretty good idea in your own mind how you are going to do it. (are you going to provide any of the elements by buying it ready-made or are you going to cut it all yourself?) Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month On 1/13/07, Mark A Kruger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > If you are talking about all custom development I'd say that 3500 will > cover writing the requirements document....after that you are going to > be working for free :) Pull out your calculator and figure hours per > application piece. Add 5% for documentation and 10 to 15% for debug > and revision - and then add 10 hours to that for good measure. > Multiply that number by whatever you want to make hourly... Even at a > low hourly rate it would have to be higher than 3500.00. Did you mean > 35,000? > > As for the "why to use CF" question. Sharpen your pencil - you are > about to get a bunch of passionate posts :) > > -Mark > > ----- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. 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