By the way interracialtoons - you make some good points.

Just move on to better clients that understand the process better.

It's like building something, you start out fine then discover a problem or conflict that creates other work so the deadline gets pushed back.
The job often is more complex than the original request would imply.

Better clients draw up detail specifications that allow for a better estimate of completion time and problems are exposed early just by reading the specs.

Poor specifications means poor estimate of completion and poor final compatibility.

Small people with shit business give poor specs and freak out over deadlines that are missed by a few days(mainly because of their own poor planning). The big boys plan on it happening, because they've been there and they know the final product is what they need more than any deadline.
And that's why they make the big bucks.

Hey guys, I don't know why your workers disappeared, because it is very easy to refuse doing any job at the very beginning. Just describe me your the task, the time frame and your budget ofcourse and I will say is it possible to complete it on time or not. Moreover, I can give you a couple of lessons how to write good programs using any kind of crazy (smarty) templates for an extra charge, ofcourse :)

good programmers should be able to give an accurate completion time if the job is explained well. they need to be aware of what delays might come up and plan for them.

i would rather be told the job will take 10 days and be delivered in 7 than to be told it will take 5 days and have it delivered in 6. i have to plan my time around what a programmer tells me.

ive read the book, i can do it myself.. i have a pretty good idea of how much time a project needs when i hire someone to do it. i also realize that there may be a day or two at the end of the project added for testing and modifications.

what bothers me the most is when a guy says "ill have it done in 5 days" and on the 5th day he/she is nowhere to be found. the least they can do is shoot me an email... "hey i expected to be done today.. im close.. i cant get blahblahblah working exactly how you wanted it yet... i need 6-8 hours to resolve it" instead they show up 3 days later with some lame excuse.

ive got a fulltime webdev guy now and i aint letting him out of the basement, i just throw down some food and mountain dew every so often.

Holy cow! Sounds like a slavery! Bugaga.

Well, that is exactly the part that will never be known.

A programmer can plan on a bug being in the program but no way to predict how long it takes to find the bug and fix it. If this were possible, microsoft would announce today that all windows/IE bugs will be fixed by April 20XX.


If the programmer didn't communicate with you then you have a right to complain, but you shouldn't freak out about a delay here and there.
That's just business no matter what you are doing.

The way of getting a quote and timeframe is that you explain what you want in as much detail as possible, and then the programmer should go through the whole scripting process mentally and ask any questions where two or more possible options exist. For myself, they had done this, then they give a time, and then disappear, etc.. I'm not saying they flaked because they took an extra day or two, I'm saying they flaked because the either didn't start or in older cases they half-finished and gave up; I learned to not pay half though even upfront now. I have another project that I was quoted 6 days on but because of the person's personal circumstances that they needed to deal with they needed to delay it being finished by two days; I didn't care, I was happy that they told me instead of just disappearing; if I absolutely needed it done within the deadlne and they couldn't reach it (not because of additional things being added) then I could then at least go to someone else, assuming they were developing on my server.