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Edison 1.2.1 will allow Facebook users to log in without creating an Edison account. I'll put the project up on http://www.elance.com/ and http://www.freelancer.com/ and see who bids. Ideally I'll find someone appropriate and get the feature implemented! |
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The test is whether I find someone who can do the project within the constraints I specify - features, quality, cost, timing, responsiveness, etc. |
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Either I find someone appropriate or I don't. For the former, I'll be done when they implement it, or, if there's a disaster, when I cancel the project. |
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o Curious who will apply. Will anyone have all the skills I specify? Will anyone look good to me?
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Tags software, edison, web, programming, outsourcing, facebook, ruby on rails, heroku
Comments & Observations
Matthew Cornell OK, the posts are up. http://www.freelancer.com/projects/Ruby-on-Rails-Facebook/Add-Facebook-Connect-Heroku-hosted.html and http://www.elance.com/php/bid/main/proposalList.php?jobid=20715987
Jul 30, 2010
Matthew Cornell As of today I have three bids on freelancer ($250, $600, $650) and two on elance ($360 and $800). India (2), Ukraine (2), USA (1). Not surprisingly, the top one claims experience in all three areas (facebook, ruby on rails, heroku), with the heroku being the one no others claim. Two others claim experience with facebook and ruby on rails. I wonder how hard it would be for them to get good at heroku. Jake and Andy certainly were able to, but they might not be good data points ;-)
Aug 01, 2010
Matthew Cornell As a micro-experiment I'll invite specific providers who match facebook+ruby on rails. Did Elance so far, where by far the facebook requirement is in the minority of skills. Freelancer made it harder to do this kind of search, BTW. I'm curious to see if I get any more responses as a result of this.
Aug 01, 2010
Matthew Cornell Interestingly, all the Elance providers rejected my invitation. Maybe the budget specified is too low?
Aug 02, 2010
Matthew Cornell OK, I got it down to two people who had all three skills: Facebook Connect, RoR, and Heroku. I went with the one that was less. Waiting to hear back his acceptance. Exciting!
Aug 12, 2010
Matthew Cornell An update: On 8/13 I awarded the project, and then we had some back-and-forth on setting up milestones and granting Heroku access. Finally got the latter done yesterday 8/19. A lesson learned from the last time (Design and Release Edison v1.2: http://edison.thinktrylearn.com/experiments/show/145) is to stay in regular contact. So I wrote today to ask specifically how soon I can expect to have his servers set up, and if there are any problems I should know about. It already feels like it's taking too long, but the delay is reasonable given I'm still new to Freelancer and Heroku. Always learning!
Aug 20, 2010
Matthew Cornell Monday, he will be deploying it to staging server along with existing code review.
Aug 22, 2010
Matthew Cornell Going slower than I'd hoped, and I had some "buyer's remorse" over the amount I spent ($500) because a brilliant programmer friend said it would only take 3 or 4 hours to code. But I had a longish Skype conversation with my contractor which reminded me that the devil's in the details (cookie complexity, for example).
Side note: I realized that my experiment has another interesting variable that I didn't analyze: When I got the bids, the Freelancer site left them open for others to see, but Elance's default is sealed bids, which they say can lead to lower bids. Surprise variable! :-) What I learned: I got more bids on freelancer (7 vs. 4), but the average was very close to each other ($530).
Sep 08, 2010
Matthew Cornell I shared my serious concerns with my contractor. As respectfully as I could make it, but also frank. I'm curious to see his response. I have an expectation of what it will be, and I'm curious to see how it compares. I'm close to giving up.
Sep 10, 2010
Matthew Cornell His reply was good. He agreed with my suggestion to create a specific testing plan that would guide us. This is a Lesson Learned. I will not terminate the project.
Related to this: I've outsourced migrating my Drupal-based-pain-in-the-arse blog to SquareSpace to lower the barriers to blogging more often, and to make it easy for my fabulous friend-cum-web-designer to pop in with a little help now and again. The project is at Migrate Drupal-based Blog to SquareSpace | Drupal
https://www.freelancer.com/projects/Drupal/Migrate-Drupal-based-Blog-SquareSpace.html , and the guy I picked looks very good. Communication with him has been excellent.
Sep 13, 2010
Matthew Cornell I got his testing document last week, and struggled to understand it. I knew the major variables were there, but it didn't click/wasn't crisp. Struggled three days to make a clearer version, and came up with something I think is better. Sent it to him on Sun, and we're talking Wed to go over it. The process feels unpleasant for some reason. I have to apply TTL and realize that when something is this new, there's a lot of learning and uncertainty involved.
Side note: I'm running a micro experiment using http://www.techsmith.com/jing/ to explain the diagram I created, because it's complex, and I had to write a lot to explain it. The screen cast was 4 minutes. I got the idea from the SquareSpace support people. An example of a little something that helps make an experiment fun (enjoying the ride). I'd like to use it to make a simple Edison Getting Started video.
Sep 21, 2010
Matthew Cornell Skyped with my contractor Wed night. I struggled with frustration at his communication style and skills, but after 1.5 hours I better understand the complex interactions between Edison-native accounts, Facebook Connect-only accounts, and mixed ones. Browser/server sessions come into play, as does complicated timing of logging into one, logging out of another, etc. We decided to use the four basic cases of how an account can be created as the starting point for testing, and to run each test in a pristine browser environment using the "private browsing" feature in Firefox. The tests will focus on authorization, but I'll spot-check Edison basics as well. So the documents we both created won't be used per se, but I think creating them was a useful exercise. I think.
Because I'm nervous about putting the code into production (I don't really know my guy yet), I'll ask my smarty colleague Andy if he's willing to look at the code before it goes live. I also need to find out how to do a complete backup on Heroku.
Sep 24, 2010
Matthew Cornell OK, the last straw happened and I've sent a message to my developer that I'm terminating the project. I should have done this sooner. From the experiment perspective, we'll see how clean the divorce is. I've paid 50%, but he's delivered nothing, so a lot of that should come back. I suppose I'll be learning how Freelancer handles disputes. This is a sad ending to the project, given it's run on for so long. How about some outsourcing warning signs:
o You encounter significant surprises that an experienced person should have anticipated or mentioned
o It is taking much longer than you thought
o It is getting complex
o What's going on is confusing
And finally,
o Your instincts are yelling to get out
I'll update soon.
Sep 29, 2010
Matthew Cornell Struggled trying to decide how much to pay the contractor, given that the project failed. Decided on 1/2. Going through the back-and-forth with Freelancer staff to get the bid price changed, and to get the remaining milestone payment adjusted. Kind of a pain, but it's to protect each other from arbitrarily changing them once there's a commitment. I wonder what Elance is like? Now I need to go back to the drawing board and find someone else. What are the lessons I learned? The only thing I didn't do was to listen to my gut when I started feeling unhappy with the project. "If working with your contractor is like pulling teeth, there's a problem." ?
Oct 04, 2010
Matthew Cornell I ended up getting the code from him, which I'll share with others as a Facebook Connect sample. Maybe it'll help or give them ideas. I'll be curious to see what my trusted programmer has to say about the quality of work embodied there.
Oct 10, 2010
Matthew Cornell I'm closing this out. My programmer said the code was helpful, and he finished it up a few weeks ago. I'm very happy to have it done. Now I need to figure out how much it's helped with people signing up. Time to hack some SQL!
Dec 26, 2010