Tell your client that you won't work under such conditions without 100% payment up-front. If he says 'no', then walk away and consider yourself to have been spared many late nights and migraines.
I would bet that such a project has 0% chance of running when the client 'loads it up'. There are just too many miscellaneous things that could be configured wrong or miscommunicated for something to work with no on-site testing/debugging. -----Original Message----- From: Mike Kear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 3:05 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: OT: is this wrong on my client's part? I have a client who is REALLY paranoid about access control and who wants me to develop a complex shopping cart for him, but never have access to his system. I have to submit my finished project on CD, then he'll load it up and test it and let me konw if it works. The site is a cluster of two servers, "probably on windows, not sure at this state", and the CF will be "probably CF7 Enterprise". The database will be definitely SQLServer2005. I'm not allowed to use cookies of any kind, not allowed to use client variables, not allowed to use sticky sessions, so that means i have to write my own version of client variables, using UUID as url variables. Oh and new UUID has to be issued on every single page view. The shopping cart is multiple currency, has to be custom written, as does everything else. Because he wants to own outright all the IP in the project, no pre-written modules can be used. Everything must be custom written for him, so he can own all the IP. I built the prototype on my shared server, and it was a very interesting exercise for me, writing my own version of client variables, but it wasnt without anguish. There were quite a few minutes spent scratching my head figuring out how to do some of the parts of the site. I am reluctant to deliver the site for acceptance testing without ever having had the chance run the code myself on its finished environment, or even having the chance to see what the environment is. (The devil is in the detail all too often, dont you think?) He's going to install my code on the servers, test it, then describe to me what needs changing, or describe what's broken. (I wont be able to see the errors for myself because it will be behind firewalls at that stage). Then I'll fix the errors as described or make whatever changes they request, submit the code on CD again, and they'll tell me if i have fixed the problem. So here's my question. I dont like this arrangement at all. And i'm asking your opinion about what I should do. My current inclination is to deliver the code as requested, but without any warranties that it will work, since I have been required to build it without any means of testing it in their environment. I am thinking I'll submit my final invoice for the completion of the job on an "as is" basis, and give them the CD with the code on it when i get the cheque. Then bill them for every change they want made, whether bug fix or enhancement. I figure i can get away with (truthfully) saying "that might be an error on your system but it works without that error on my test environment and since you denied me access to your environment you will have to pay me to make a change." Am i being unreasonable with this? 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| ColdFusion MX7 by Adobe® Dyncamically transform webcontent into Adobe PDF with new ColdFusion MX7. Free Trial. http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion?sdid=RVJV Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:278197 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
