What do you offer?

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Charles256
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Post by Charles256 »

nothing like hardcoding your name in binary at random just to throw off a client.. tell them it's of vital importane to never delete that line...LMAO
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n00b Saibot
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Post by n00b Saibot »

Charles256 wrote:tell them it's of vital importane to never delete that line...LMAO
Maybe I should give them :arrow: Warning: deleting this line can have really nasty effects e.g. making the code go awry and waking you up everyday with a splitting headache with holy crap right on you
ROTFLMAO :lol:
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onion2k
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Post by onion2k »

feyd wrote:Most of my contracts are worded such that I don't own the code in the end, so roughly 90% of my work is entirely custom built.
Do your contracts specify that you can't use public domain libraries? If you were to write a common library, and release it under a public domain licence, you could sell it, share it, give a closed licence modified version it to the site owner.. whatever.
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

onion2k wrote:Do your contracts specify that you can't use public domain libraries? If you were to write a common library, and release it under a public domain licence, you could sell it, share it, give a closed licence modified version it to the site owner.. whatever.
Most often it's not allowed.

On the flipside, I charge them through the nose for it all and as somewhat mentioned, it does take a lot longer to complete..
Envex
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Re: What do you offer?

Post by Envex »

Ree wrote:Do you develop customized solutions for each new client, or do you have some premade 'modules' (such as product management, service management, newsletter management etc) that you offer? I understand that always there will be a need to do coding according to custom requirements, but do you use such 'modules' when you can?
Most definately. I'm a Perl developer, newly turned PHP, and I have my set of Perl libraries that I use for basically every project. It cuts my development time by probably at least 50%, and lets me provide clients with a very nice, easy to use interface without having to really charge them for it since it's already done. It just let me easily do things such as create a nice interface for an Admin Panel, quickly create HTML templates, send e-mail messages, handle transactions and payments through 28 different processors, etc. I basically just have to copy the library files over, load the one main-lib.pl file in the script, and everything else is already taken care of for me.

Works great. I've talked with various other development companies, and lots of them say every project is custom and developed from the ground up. I don't really understand why any development company would do this. Seems like a whole lot of extra work for nothing, better chance of bugs, and the quality / appearance isn't going to be as good because your development times almost doubles, and time is money. In general, the client just wants something that works, and not looks good. But if it does look good for the same amount of money, then they're going to be that much more impressed, and will pass the word along to their friends.
pilau
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Post by pilau »

Are you all freelancers?

<off-topic>
Charles256 wrote:nothing like hardcoding your name in binary at random just to throw off a client.. tell them it's of vital importane to never delete that line...LMAO
How do you do that? :?
</off-topic>
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n00b Saibot
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Post by n00b Saibot »

pilau wrote:Are you all freelancers?
I work in a comp :) and for the encoding problem :arrow: SEARCH :twisted:
qads
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Post by qads »

pilau wrote:Are you all freelancers?
Aye, I too ended up rewriting most of the stuff, but about a year or so ago I made db, form processing and authorization classes and always point at the start of any project that I own these files, they can have the rest. most of the clients are not to worried about it anyways and the bigger ones always need their own stuff built from scratch.
Charles256
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Post by Charles256 »

i don't know how to write my name in binary:-D I'm sure I could find something on google, i was just making a joke:-D but i'm sure you could and then comment it out so it'd have no effect except to amuse you.
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Charles256 wrote:i don't know how to write my name in binary:-D I'm sure I could find something on google, i was just making a joke:-D but i'm sure you could and then comment it out so it'd have no effect except to amuse you.

Code: Select all

[feyd@home]>php -r "echo(bin2hex('Charles256'));"
436861726c6573323536
You can make that part of their "serial number" or combine it into some other equally cumbersome thing, maybe as a combination in your MD5/SHA1/SHA256 salt ;)
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n00b Saibot
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Post by n00b Saibot »

feyd wrote:
Charles256 wrote:i don't know how to write my name in binary:-D I'm sure I could find something on google, i was just making a joke:-D but i'm sure you could and then comment it out so it'd have no effect except to amuse you.

Code: Select all

[feyd@home]>php -r "echo(bin2hex('Charles256'));"
436861726c6573323536
You can make that part of their "serial number" or combine it into some other equally cumbersome thing, maybe as a combination in your MD5/SHA1/SHA256 salt ;)
Great idea Feyd, i wuz doing a similar thing tho :)
alex.barylski
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Post by alex.barylski »

Ree wrote:wait wait wait... Say, I've coded a class and I used it in some guy's website who wants to retain the rights to the code (thus the class as well). Now another client comes and wants me to do some coding for him and I see that the class that was used for the previous guy's website would fit just fine in the new guy's site. According to you, I can't reuse the class. What do I do then? Code the same differently (maybe do some procedural???)?? Change var names in the class? Pretty stupid 'solutions' those would be when you think about it. :roll:

I'd use the class right away, the guy will never know if I used it on another project or not. Why would one care about it?
General rule of thumb...

If a client pays you for the time it took to write the code...it's rightfully theirs...

If on your spare time you write a class which is generic enough to reuse in some other project...you would inform your client that you are going to use a pre-made class to save both you and them time and money.

You explain you've released the code under GPL or similar and that it's likely to be used on other web sites...

If they don't like the idea...and want to keep the code...

You re-write it verbatim, but rename all the variables :P

And charge them full price for their stupidity in not understanding the power of OSS

Cheers :)
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Some clients like the fact that you can finish their project faster if you use pre-built libraries (connectors, validators, mailers, etc). I am up front with my prospects that I will use utility classes that they cannot rightfully own: some are OSS, some are GNU LPGL/PGL, some are just generic that I could very easily rewrite the entire thing from memory.

Knowing that a large portion of their project will still be custom built, they usually don't have a problem with the use/reuse of application segments that I have already developed for previous clients or personal projects.

Up front honesty is a valuable characteristic. And besides, it is your business. If they don't want the stipulations you don't have to take the job.
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