Why not cut out the middle-man?Why do designers work with us rather than learn to program themselves? I see all sorts of books like 'Learn Perl in 21 Days'. How hard can it be? The answer is that programming is not something you can learn in few weeks, it requires a left-brain approach and experience that takes years to acquire. So why not hire a programmer yourself? Maybe you can reduce costs even if you don't have enough work to keep him/her busy 100% of the time. Tempted? Think about this: Selecting staffHow do you find the right person? Its hard enough for a company like ours with decades of collective experience in the IT industry to pick out the best software staff from the output of the University system! A II.1 or II.2 in Computer Studies means nothing; we regularly interview dozens of candidates for each job and are astonished at how little actual knowledge and skill you need to exit a University with a degree. This whole area is full of pitfalls. Just because your candidate has a Computer Science degree, talks a good story and uses a lot of buzz words doesn't mean he or she is actually going to do the job well. It may take you months to find out your new recruit can't hack it. CommunicationSomeone is going to need to explain the end user's needs to your programmer and check that what they have done is sensible. Believe it or not, what is obvious to you may not be obvious to a computer science graduate. Most projects go wrong because the programmer develops the wrong system, not because the programs don't work. Turning your client's requirement into a brief for a programmer is a skill that you will have to aquire. And it will be harder than you think. Code re-useBecause we have been working in the Internet world since 1995 we have built up a library of functions which we can re-use on your client's site. So we can often do in days what would take weeks if started from scratch. It will take you years to build to thet level. Safety What do you do when the programmer is on holiday or worse - decides to leave you? Programs require ongoing support because what works today may not work tomorrow. The technical environment can change and programs stop working, or your client may exercise a new part of the software and find a program bug. What do you do if your client's site has crashed and your programmer is on holiday? If your programmer decides to leave you (and turnover is high for experienced IT staff) you have another level of problems. You will find that any new programmer coming on board will have a steep learning curve - often preferring to rewrite rather than patch someone elses code. Why - because any programmer left to their own devices will work in a certain way which others will find hard to follow. Go with an experienced team of software professionalsThe bottom line is that you can't just hire a programmer, you need to hire a team and manage them using IT disciplines. You need to be very large to be able to justify the cost and management time this will incur. We are a team with a common set of standards and skills. We are used to working with designers and their clients and have an extensive library of pre-programmed solutions. You will never be left high and dry and there will always be someone around who can investigate any queries. |
