site question
 

ok, working on a new site (slowly, due to a ton of other work lately). here's the deal. the site's going to at least eventually need a pretty extensive backend when it's running full. probably to be written in php, not sure there's really anything else that would suit it.

now, at this time i really don't know php much. very little, so obviously at this point i'm not going to be able to write it. i do other things, it's on my list of eventualities, but not right at the moment. so, basically to release the site i've got 3 choices:

1) hire someone to build the backend.
2) wait, learn it my self and build it
3) hard code everything for now and automate it later

not really wanting to hire anyone on it, because it's a pretty big project. i'd assume probably anyone in their right mind would want at least $3k for the job, probably more.

i consulted one of my programming friends about it, and he wanted a pretty exorbitant amount to code in in profit % form, something i'm really not prepared to pay (especially over the life of the site what little work he'd actually be doing). this guy is golden, so it'd be awesome to have him do it, but he wanted a shitload of money because in his words he did not "want his name attached to anything in porn". i don't really want to drop a few $k on it yet until i have a better idea for its success.

waiting and building the whole thing myself would probably realistically take months, just to build the backend. not really very efficient, and puts me pretty far behind. and, i'd probably have to drop a lot of other things to build it.

thirdly, hard code everything. this is what my friend recommended, because that way i would know exactly line by line how the site would work, yada yada. not a bad idea, however the only problem with this is of course i'd have to be sure and do the daily updates probably around midnight every night for prime effect. not that i can't necessarily do that right now, but, it would be a pain in the ass to do everything by hand. and, it would be missing a few minor features i'd like to have on the site. i could probably live with that, and it probably wouldn't be detrimental to the site, but it would definitely help keep people coming back.

so anyway, any ideas? anybody hardcoded a site and rearranged it later for automation? that, in itself sounds like it could be a small nightmare...

format c:

my servers get that all the time.

i will do it for a cut. Just icq me 2668459

As with any venture, if it's possible to automate from the start, do it or you'll be hating life down the road. If your shit takes off you'll be busy with other things and find that having to rework something that could have been done "right" from the start is a HUGE misuse of your time. And if it doesn't take off, your odds of having a salable assett are far greater if it's automated.

:2 cents: