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Old 02-22-2010, 08:26 PM  
brandonstills
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Chatsworth, CA
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Excellent write up.

I can't stress the importance of proper thorough specifications enough. Back when I was freelancing full time I turned down 90% of the people who contacted me and the most common reason was because there weren't sufficient specs.

I've learned from experience it just isn't worth working on those types of projects.

Also, the more experienced programmers make use of meta-programming. It has been said that "Great programmers can write better programmers than they can hire". That is one of the primary reasons why some programmers can get done in 1 hour what would take another programmer 10-20 hours.

The great programmers know how to find the best solution to a problem. If you are a carpenter and all you know how to use is a hammer then you are going to have a very hard time trying to cut a board to a certain length. It is going to be a long and tedious process. Sure you can get it done, but with the right tools you can get it done faster. Which would you rather do, pay the $9/hr guy for 100 hours to cut boards with a hammer, or hire someone who actually knows what a saw is and get it done in 1 hour for $100?

A good question to ask programmers is what other languages they know and use. Even if the project only requires PHP, if they know 10 other languages they are most likely going to write better PHP code. The more styles of coding they have seen and worked with the more they can write efficient code.

The thing about programming is that you can create your own tools. So a programmer that knows about a tool in one language that doesn't exist in PHP can just create it. Versus the average joe PHP programmer who would just bang away on that board with the hammer until it is chipped down to the correct length.

Last edited by brandonstills; 02-22-2010 at 08:27 PM..
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