Sounds good to me. So much comes down to the experience level of the person who wants the site, from their technical skills to how far theyve got a detailed concrete spec of what they need.
Im not much good with money, but I guess the issue of exactly how much something should cost is not just about the work involved, but the perceived value of whats delivered, any sort of standard industry rates (eg programmers cost $xxx per day), and what the customer can afford or expects to pay. Being in real estate I imagine Dee will have come across similar issues in that field. Different developers will price things differently but I imagine some may base it on who the customer is, theres probably a perception that theres loads of money in real estate, wheras some charity of personal thing could potentially be done for love & time rather than oodles of cash. Then there is the old sayings about beware of stuff that seems to cheap. Develoeprs who are just starting, or just want to do little work and throw together something thats mostly a site like they've made 100 times before, could offer you a great price but the support may not me there. There are surely no shortage of customers who have had a bad time with developers inn the past, either through spiralling costs & timescales or poor results, and there are also many frustrated developers who have been driven wild by the customer changing mind on the spec etc, or fallen out of love with the framework, language or opensource project that they base their work on. Personally Id suggest, if you have more money than time or techie abilities, I would continue your research for a bit longer, and then ideally find a developer who has made sites with extremely similar functionality in the past. If you can look in their portfolio and find a site that is close to what you want in key ways, and has ideally been running for quite a while, with a similar number of users to what you envisage for your site, you are onto a winner. A certain amount of extra cost is worth it if it provides reasonable assurance that they can deliver the results you want. Also if they've already done a site with the same functionality, you will be armed with knowledge that prevents them charging you too much for custom code that they've actually already done for another client. And yeah, certainly from the liited details on spec you gave, the graphics design & theming cost could be a considerable chunk of the total, as most of the functionality you mention already exists, there isnt too much wheel reinventing to be done. Oh yeah and you likely wont get any once answer to questions about which system is better. It will depend on the develop as most usually specialise in one or 2 systems, languages etc, have chosen those for their own good reasons, and are likely to argue that the alternatives are inferior. So long as they dont make your site out of something really obscure that few other developers use, and their timescales & costs are right for you, thats probably the most you can ensure, or risk getting dragged into eternal techie argumnts about my drupal being bigger than your joomla, ruby on rails blowing goats, or php being inferior. Cheers Steve Elbows --- In [email protected], "Roxanne Darling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'll be a contrarian here. We are developers and depending on what > requirements you have, $15K is not at all expensive. A person may be > able to set up a site in a day or two, but that is on the base code > and server config. Are you also requiring custom design? That adds a > few grand easily. And then customizing the design to the CMS? Another > day or two is reasonable as these CMS you mentioned are not that easy > to personalize outside of the built-in functions. Are you going to > need training and support? Then add more time to develop a user > manual. Most clients we work with would not be able to go to a > message board for a CMS and get their questions answered. > > Hoe many user groups aka permission groups will be required? Each > person can only belong to one group and it takes some serious planning > sometimes to map that > > How much consultation will be required to develop your specifications? > There are literally hundreds of options and questions that arise in > development where the client gets to choose between A and B. Or wants > C, when it doesn't exist until the developer writes some new code. > This could easily be several days of time, involving a project manager > and a programmer plus the people on the client side - who will require > time to make their decisions, once armed with information. > > How much security do you need? Joomla in particular is known as being > very hackable and if your users/content are important, then this is a > CMS that will need expert installation and monitoring. > > If it is your own site, and you are the only ones who will be in there > for the most part, then the requirements are simpler. But when > developing a commercial site for multiple users, you have many more > considerations and you want a professional on your side IMO. If you > have the luxury of time, you could try to do a test install and see > what limitations you run into it. But you run the risk of having to > throw all that work away if you quickly run into limitations. Better > we think to find a developer who can tell you what the best CMS will > be after spending some consult time with you to determine your "must > have" and "want to have" requirements. > > I hope you find this helpful, and congrats to you for doing your > research. That makes you several steps ahead of the typical client! > > Aloha, > > Rox > > On 5/21/07, Stan Hirson, Sarah Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "Steve Watkins" <steve@> wrote: > > > > > > It can get quite confusing. Not exactly comparing like for like, > > > although the end results may be the same. > > > > > > > I think Steve has given an excellent response to the question. > > > > I am not a programmer or developer and came at this as a documentary > > film maker who needed something a bit more flexible than blogging > > software. I chose Joomla. If you want to see how I integrated the > > text and video, you can visit http://hestakaup.com. You can do a lot > > in Joomla without writing code and it is very easy to maintain. I run > > it on Dreamhost. > > > > Best, > > > > Stan Hirson > > http://hestakaup.com > > > > > > > -- > Roxanne Darling > "o ke kai" means "of the sea" in hawaiian > 808-384-5554 > http://www.twitter.com/roxannedarling > > http://www.beachwalks.tv > http://www.barefeetshop.com > http://www.barefeetstudios.com >
