On 2010-06-27, at 20:57, Sean Corfield wrote: > I'm sorry, but if the "little guy" can't afford $200 or even $400 for > some software that makes his job possible / easier, then he doesn't > deserve to be in business. > > What on earth kind of living can someone be making from selling > software services where a few hundred bucks can't be covered by their > rate on a project? That's crazy talk. > > As Matt R and other have said: "thats peanuts". > > I feel the same when I hear people complain about how they "can't > afford" to attend conferences. It's bullshit if you care about your > career and actually make a living out of it! All the time I've been > freelance (three occasions, up to five years a piece), I've set aside > money for training / conferences as part of my career plan so that I > stay current and marketable and I learn shit that makes me a better, > more productive developer. Stuff like this is just the cost of doing > business in this industry. Professionals invest in themselves. > > If someone is really living hand-to-mouth as a software developer and > can't afford a few hundred dollars on software, then they need to go > get a new career. Software pays well and if you can't make money at > it...
The flip side of the pricing equation is that possibly 50% of the people willing to spend $400 on a shopping cart might be willing to spend $2000, and would feel like they got a better product because it was two thousand dollars. I've never successfully convinced a client to use an off-the-shelf shopping cart package. Maybe it happened when I was just starting consulting, but I can't remember that far back :-) Nowadays I'm either working with a system that's already been built, or clients seem to think that their needs are sufficiently more complex and specific than everyone else's, and no matter how much I try to convince them to evaluate a pre-built system, they have always wanted me to build one from scratch. So I do. The conversation about training and conferences is a little OT, but I'll pitch in as it's something I've been thinking about anyway. I've been developing ColdFusion apps for about 14 years now and I've never attended a CF conference. I have been sent to conferences occasionally by employers (when I wasn't self-employed) and have mostly found them to be a waste of time. Everyone learns differently and I'm just as happy keeping the money in my pocket, skipping the conference, and learning on my own. Reading blogs is a great way to pick up others' opinions (thanks everyone) and I see enough of other peoples' code that I still even occasionally learn something. The great thing about conferences, I suppose, is being seen. I've reached the point in my career where it probably would help to be seen more, so if you see me at a conference you can laugh at me for making this comment here :-) In the next year or so I'm going to try to hit a security conference and maybe a ColdFusion one too. - Andrew. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology-Michael-Dinowitz/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:334882 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
