I think the foundation of how these sites work is broken. What we need is development nirvana. A few key aspects would be:
- Building Relationships and Reducing greed
- Educating All
- Putting real business users, and their verified requirements, together with real Development teams.
- Producing Quality code, at a fair cost…
So far this is just a dream. Right?
Can’t agree more Jeff.
I’ve used RAC for 4 projects and have had incredible success. Of course, I do write out my requirements in detail and try to be very clear when responding to questions.
I’ve often found that if I ask questions of the coders that I will get a better feel for his or her talents. I treat it like I’m hiring somebody to work for me forever, and it has always worked in my favor. In fact, I often get better results than I asked for in a timeframe sooner than I expected.
I use Rent-A-Coder frequently: Over 40 successful projects so far, as a buyer.
Here are some guidelines:
Be specific. Your specification should be as unambiguous as possible.
Post projects that you can check for correctness. If you do not want to spend time testing, then (any!) outsourcing/contracting solution will not be good for you. You will need an employee (not a contractor) that will be called to fix any bugs that appear down the rod.
The site is great to accomplish basic, trivial tasks. Coders have libraries ready, so the cost for them is minimal as well. You get get scrappers/crawlers built for less than $100 and basic web+database applications for less than $500.
Great as coding assistants. If you have a one-time task and the code does not need to be supported in the future, Rent-A-Coder is great.
Now, for full disclosure: I have a graduate degree in Computer Science. I know what is feasible and what is not. I know how much effort a project requires, and I know the running rate in different countries.
I am not a generous buyer but all the coders that worked with me are happy, according to the feedback that they left. I guess they appreciate predictability and the ability to interact with a buyer that knows what he wants.
I dare someone to post the halting problem on one of these sites and see what replies you get.
For me these sites simply are just to cheap. I signed up at one of them when I was in high school to make some extra cash. Ended up getting $30 to proofread a document, which was pretty good, but most of the programming projects came out to less that minimum wage, so I didn’t do it.
I’m not really worried about this cannibalizing our market. I think that people know if you want quality you have to pay for it.
I do work for Rent-A-Coder. Like many have said here before me, the tasks posted are often either outrageously unrealistic (clone of eHarmony.com for $200) or extremely poorly documented (I want a website that sells jewelry – no specs).
Pick and choose and you can do well. I’ve found a large niche in simply writing articles for websites in English. Apparently, many folks wanting work done for them have a hard time finding people who can actually write English well.
Since content is King of the Internet (you should know this better than most, Jeff), I can find an endless supply of content writing.
I won’t bid on $2.00 per 500 word article postings either, but I’ve done articles for over $15.00 each. I’ve developed long-term relationships and have been paid $30.00 for a 700 word article from a guy I met on Rent-A-Code.
Many buyers are as desparate for good work.
I don’t have the time or energy for huge projects. The one real development project I actually ever did was a C++ project that I only bid on after I was absolutely certain I could do it.
This project was pretty small and didn’t take very long. More importantly, I had a lot of fun doing it.
However, I don’t think anyone can possibly expect a large project completed correctly with the kind of specifications and project management available on these sites. That’s why I won’t bid on them. They’re doomed from the get-go.
When I was first starting in coding, I did some work with RentACoder and at first, it was okay, as I was doing rinky-dink projects, like VBA programming.
Then I started taking on more and more larger projects and that’s when things started going sour. It seemed the bigger the project, the more likely it was to go into arbitration, and normally for items that weren’t worthy of arbitration.
I had to put a project into arbitration once because the client was attempting to change the project specs repeatedly, and I finally just realized that my $500 project was going to wind up paying me less than $10/hr because I’d spent about 20 hours just going back and forth about the fact that I wouldn’t agree to widen the scope of the project without additional payment. Oddly enough (as stated by a previous poster about RAC’s arbitration process), RAC took the buyer’s side completely, and because I’d never actually stated a refusal to do the extra work (as opposed to saying we would discuss any changes when a conclusion was reached) they believed that I had implicitly agreed to the add-ons…without agreeing.
As of that point, I stopped working for RentACoder altogether.
A lot of clients have difficulties understanding that there are coders, and there are coders. It’s like they think the job is like painting the house or something where any sucker with two hands and a couple of legs can perform equally well…
Who would you hire if you could choose to paint your ceiling artistically, your nephew for $5 per hour or Michelangelo for $5000 per hour…?
Or would you pay rather pay some random dude $5 per hour to do your finances then pay Warren Buffet $10,000 per hour…?
What is cheapest…?
I’ve seen projects where the client has payed $20 per hour and the coder spent three months on it and the project was a NIGHTMARE when delivered and it followed every single anti design pattern and bad practice in existence today. Where me (or one of my friends) easily could deliver a project orders of magnitudes better in all metrics for a fraction of the price in a fraction of the time. But just because we charge $100-$200 per hour the client goes blind and chooses the cheap dude…
How do we cope with THAT?
THAT is worthy a blog post Jeff… 
What the heck, I’m hitting StackOverflow with that as a question now in fact …
Did it; http://stackoverflow.com/questions/314863/how-to-convince-a-client-that-expensive-is-cheaper
.t
Looks like the esteemed Mr. Turing is indeed soliciting bids for his famous problem. http://www.getacoder.com/projects/bug_finder_92913.html
Christo, maybe Jeff has to rent a blogger
Umm, why not? Are they different than a lawyer, plumber, heart surgeon, kitchen tile specialist?
Before you can have a rational interaction with anyone about software development, you must understand these timeless principles.
My experience with these guys is that you exchange your job as a coder for a job as project manager/Software tester/Security Analyst. Sometimes the trade-off is worth it. I mean, you do offload maybe 20% of the work to someone else, and if that person is any good, and has reasonable rates, it can work.
Is it a panacea or the new aeon of cheapness come in our lifetime?
No.
Coding is about 20% of the work and cost (testing, documentation, design and management eat up the rest), no matter what some pig-ignorant manager thinks or what sales pitch that developer in Lower Slobbovia is pitching.
I dare someone to post the halting problem on one of these sites and see what replies you get. - Dylan
I dare someone to post fizzbuzz on one of these sites and see what you get.
How is this different than offline development experience ?
On some level, it’s not, which is why I think it’s interesting and vital for programmers to look at these sites and see what they get right and wrong – and consider why.
re: I dare someone to post the halting problem on one of these sites and see what replies you get.
I saw (http://www.getacoder.com/projects/bug_finder_92913.html) show up as in an item in Hacker News I immediately knew it had to be a Coding Horror/Stack Overflow fan. LOL!
re: I dare someone to post the halting problem on one of these sites and see what replies you get.
I saw this item (http://www.getacoder.com/projects/bug_finder_92913.html) on Hacker News and immediately knew it was a Coding Horror/StackOverflow fan. LOL!
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