Comment by PythonicAlpha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PythonicAlpha | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I want to shine some light on one side problem, scratched here:

The problem today is (out of the perspective of a developer): To many companies rely on just "hire any (cheap) developer" to ramp up the product. I see it all the time: Quality is not asked for, many companies (specially in the web business) just want the cheapest developers. They search for a student (at best), because he is cheap and will just make a small time estimation and an even smaller fixed price offer for the project. The student will happily work overtime that is not covered by the initial estimation.

Than the companies go mad, when either the programmer is running away or the whole project runs into a blind alley (or both at the same time), because the "totally expensive" programmer had not enough experience e.g. with database development and the database structure just lets you shiver. Then the shouting and anger is big: "Damn programmers -- all are liars and lazy!"

What went wrong, stated Uncle Bob correctly in his Blog: http://blog.8thlight.com/uncle-bob/2013/11/19/HoardsOfNovice...

But the "cheap, cheap!" culture seams to be unstoppable. If you tell people in advance about "quality" and "professionalism", they don't listen or just laugh at you. It seams, all the people just have to find out the hard way -- but I guess, even than most of them will not learn at all.

I believe this is a marketing problem (from the developers). See, I am a non-tech founder, I don't understand why X is cheaper than Y. If I perceive the same benefit, I will get the cheapest one.

(This is hypothetical, but not so much: I understand a bit of tech and even so I don't have so much clue on how to judge a developer besides what he shows me he had done).

You are right, that developers are most of the time bad marketers. But I must disagree with the notion "... besides what he shows me had done" (I admit that might not have been your point, but I still want to loose a word or two about it).

That's a problem intrinsic with software: What you "see" is not what you get. You see a perfect polished UI, but you get a sack of bugs! So this criterion is not usable at all. The intrinsic values of a program are not visible to non-developers at all. Even software-companies have a hard time, deciding which criterion to choose as a base for decisions.

I think, when you look at cars or houses, people are more likely to ask a professional to decide about the condition of the car or house. Also everybody that loves his car (and life) will bring his car to some person that has read some books about motors and does repair the brakes "half-prize" in his back-yard. But in software practice, you just want to see some polished front lids of cars and decide that the brake repairs will be fine.

This is tied in closely to the issue of technical debt. Developers often have a hard time explaining clearly to non-tech product/business types why "faster, cheaper, now" in terms of code will not end up being cheaper in the long run; but conversely, just as most of us can't go out and just buy a house without taking on debt, new founders don't have the resources to start out with top-tier teams working full-time for them. When it comes to deciding on compromises to make so that your product can actually get built and within a realistic timeframe, I'd say it makes sense to find someone with dev experience who can at least help advise you on how and whom to hire, red flags, etc. - and _trust_ that person, if you don't have the requisite knowledge and experience yourself.

You could say it's a marketing problem and you might be right within reason. Unfortunately, I could also see a perception problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com