[consulting] Staying Current

[Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg]

> The flip side of this is that nonprofits who should be spending money
feeding the hungry or whatever they do -- are forced to pay a lot more money
so that every customization they want can be done is such a way that it is
contributed back.
>
> I can see why you would want to do it that way, but I don't think you
should judge others who choose not to.

Sorry, but I have to judge, constantly, since a big (though shrinking) part
of what we do is clean up other people's messes.

> For example, a client came to me and wanted view data in a way that wasn't
right for Views.  I just added it to my custom module and it did exactly
what that client wanted. And it was done the Drupal way.   It took me a
couple of hours.   I guess I could have built a new Views module -- that no
one else would have ever used -- and charged 10 times as much.

I don't think you get what I'm saying. I'm saying that by offering to save a
client $10 today, you are costing them $20 tomorrow. I obviously don't know
the real numbers, but my point is that there are real costs to doing things
on the cheap, and while it may take the sticker shock out of a sale, it
certainly isn't helping set real expectations regarding the cost of a piece
of technology over its lifespan.

I'd also ask: did your release your views code? Did you at least submit a
patch that others could look at? I can't see how these things could/should
take 10x the amount of time, but even if they did, your client would be
thanking you as soon as the custom software you created didn't jive with the
software the rest of the community used and supported.

In short: you are hiding costs, not lowering them, and that doesn't help
non-profits any more than for-profits.

--
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech, LLC
http://zivtech.com
alex at zivtech.com
office: (267) 940-7737
cell: (215) 866-8956
skype: zivtech
aim: zivtech


2009/3/29 Sam Cohen <sam at samcohen.com>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg <
Alex at zivtech.com> wrote:
>>
>> > .. and for those who have used Drupal as more of a framework with
advanced CMS components ready built.
>> >
>> > The work I've done is firmly is the second set.
>>
>> And how much of that code have you released into the wild? It strikes
>> me that your problem may be, well, your problem. It's not up to me to
>> release your code and I can't force you to actually take an active
>> part in the community.
>>
>> Start generalizing/releasing your code, and maybe you won't have as many
issues.
>>
>> --
>
>
> The flip side of this is that nonprofits who should be spending money
feeding the hungry or whatever they do -- are forced to pay a lot more money
so that every customization they want can be done is such a way that it is
contributed back.
>
> I can see why you would want to do it that way, but I don't think you
should judge others who choose not to.
>
> For example, a client came to me and wanted view data in a way that wasn't
right for Views.  I just added it to my custom module and it did exactly
what that client wanted. And it was done the Drupal way.   It took me a
couple of hours.   I guess I could have built a new Views module -- that no
one else would have ever used -- and charged 10 times as much.
>
>
> Sam
>
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>
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