[consulting] Cleaning Up After Bad Developers

[Sam Cohen]

It seems to me there is room for different levels of expertise here.  There
are many small nonprofits and businesses that don't have the $100 to  $150
an hour for a developers.

Let's keep in mind, there are a lot of great sites out their that didn't use
a developer at all.

Many folks without a budget try doing it themselves, but get stuck.  So they
hire a newbie, someone who know a bit more than them to help them out.  Yes,
that person might not do things the right way, but if they did, they
wouldn't be an inexpensive developer.

As long as the developer working on the site doesn't claim to have expertise
he doesn't have and isn't charging $125 an hour for $30 an hour work, I
think there's room for those type of folks -- with simple sites with minor
customization.

When I client comes to me, I'm very open about that.  I tell them they can
find people cheaper than me and they can also find people more expensive --
and there are pros and cons with any choice.

Those building a site need to do their homework.  If they're paying $25 an
hour for a developer and others are charging 5 times that, they need to
realize there are things they aren't getting.

But I do think what Drupal is lacking is not accreditation, but an easy way
for those who do try and customize Drupal to quickly familiarize themselves
with the best practices for doing so.

The best I've found is the book Drupal Pro Development, highly recommended
to any new developer.

Sam










.

On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 9:38 AM, William Smith <william.darren at gmail.com>wrote:

> In addition to this, I often encounter the opposite as well - 'value'
> programmers (usually general PHP coders with limited Drupal
> experience) who made a mess of a site by not knowing how to do things
> the Drupal way.   Javascript included in all manner of creative ways
> and without making use of jQuery where it would be sensible to do so,
> modules hacked and re-hacked where there were simple theme overrides
> or custom module solutions, etc.., etc..
>
> It drives me absolutely crazy when a client (who would initially
> probably have thought me expensive) has been lead to be believe that
> they are getting a 'good deal', only to have to pay someone else (at
> that 'expensive' rate) to come in and fix all the problems the cheap
> developer has left in their wake.  (Usually right before they bail on
> the project because they are in over their head).
>
> I've never used oDesk to find work, but I did join up in order to take
> the Drupal qualifications test that they have for a spin.  I'm
> generally in favor of this sort of thing at this point.  Too many
> people knowing just enough about Drupal to make a real mess for the
> people who've hired them.
>
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Steve Kessler
> <skessler at denverdataman.com> wrote:
> > I am working on a couple sites right now where there has been poor
> > development by other developers, egregious pricing, lack of communication
> > and poor service because the sites were too small for these shops.
> >
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/consulting/attachments/20090324/99310307/attachment.htm>