I would be very surprised if a legitimate, possible, request with sufficient detail was given in the paid requests forum that it would be hard to get a good coder...
Why would anyone do this you might ask... All I can say is that if you never thought about this you probably don't need it, but I've been looking for this for 2 years with numerous requests for it that went unanswered.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic here, I like you and really appreciate you for releasing that mod because coincidentally it leads into my argument I was making in this thread. Twice I actually hired someone to make a mod similar to that for me and both times ended up with them wasting my time. The funny thing was everybody was acting like it was super-complicated but it turned out to be just a couple file edits on one page. I've even went and modified it myself to add some extra things to customize it to my needs. It's as simple of a mod as you can get yet it took you two years and me and others numerous tries as well to get it made...
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5
For most coders this isn't going to make them "rich"- the money is OK but it's rarely worth putting up with a client who doesn't know what they want, have no clue the work involved in making something, or otherwise is so out of touch with coding reality it hurts. You don't want to disappoint someone, but if after 90% of the work is done they come along and want to make what they think is a minor change it becomes a very touchy situation...
Plan it out ahead of time. Ask them exactly what they want. Decide on a price and tell them exactly what you can do for them and approximately how long it will take. Explain beforehand that you can't change the specs once things are decided upon and work is underway, at least not without increasing how much he'll be charged. Other than the normal issues that comes in any business relationship I really don't see the problem. I agree that it can be a touchy situation but that's the kind of thing you have to deal with in business. If you don't feel comfortable handling custom jobs for individual customers then another option is to create stock scripts and re-sell them at a set price.
Most professional coders do quite well, it's a growing industry. I don't run websites as a hobby, this is a business for me and I've been doing it for many years. Its been my experience that most skilled coders are either working on their own projects, have a small amount of large clients they work for, or they use their programming skills in a typical "9-5" and don't have much time/need for freelance work. These coders who are broke hanging out on message boards are usually the one's who are too lazy and unmotivated to send a simple PM to someone looking to hire them. Or they take jobs and don't come through on it, disappear, flake on the client, etc. Yeah there are tons of annoying potential clients out there, especially when they think they own you just because you agree to work for them, but there is lots of money to be made and tons of people waving around cash with no-one to give it to.
11-29-2010, 04:21 PM
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