Essays and Explorations on the Art of Being a Great On-Demand Programmer
I ve been a programmer for hire for a number of years now, and in such a broad field as software development, it s taken me some time to converge on a succinct description of what it is I do, especially one suitable for non-technical folks. But I think this sums it up: I design and build [ ]
Yesterday I wrote about personal projects, and I would be remiss not to mention my own. It s called CoachAccountable. It s a SaaS business, cloud-based software for managing and structuring professional coaching relationships. Reborn from the ashes of version 1 which was built nearly 4 years ago by me and my partners, it carries forth the [ ]
Sometimes the greatest thing about being a programmer for hire is you have virtually unlimited access to a very useful class of service provider. The employee discount is pretty nice, too. The notion that software is eating the world is fast becoming a commonplace quotation and is well on it s way to Cliché Town. Correspondingly, [ ]
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to have a spirited discussion via email with a fellow just about to graduate with a CS degree, centered around a few themes here on Programmer for Hire. Here are excerpts from the email that got us started: Hey John I ve read nine or ten of your [ ]
Last month a good friend of mine, Chris Kissner of ProCntr, invited me to give video blogging a whirl. Chris has all the stuff for a video session: lights, cameras, backdrops, reflectors, you name it. He even gave me a little foundation makeup to look my best on camera. We riffed for about 2 hours [ ]
The other day I got this email: Hi John, I just finished reading your post regarding not signing NDAs and I was wondering if you might be willing to share your insight as to how I might want to proceed in something similar (in other words, what is the appropriate way to develop an idea when one does not [ ]
The other day I got to chatting with a lovely woman who reached out after reading my blog. She was interested in talking about an idea she had, how she might get it off the ground, and if I might be a good fit into the process in some capacity or another. I saw what [ ]
I m tickled by the good that can come of the noble act of releasing an open source project. Two months ago I released trueDAT, a web-based GUI for MySQL databases and the first real project I ve ever taken the time to open source. While I always figured good things eventually came to open source contributors1, [ ]
There s a delightful phenomenon that happens with clients after the first contract is executed and fulfilled on, and that I call Drive-Thru Programming . The way I am most often engaged professionally is like this: a client needs me to build a web application, we sketch out the relevant particulars, I write up the resultant scope [ ]
As posted on Craigslist: I m an independent web application developer (see www.jpl-consulting.com plus my blog to learn everything about me). Bottom line: I want someone able to handle my client s typical 0-10 maintenance issues for $300+/month. Here s the setup: I have several active web application projects out there which I built and am responsible for [ ]