4 ms·
Ask HN: Why are there so many bad developers?
As someone who runs a software development consultancy I'm constantly talking to potential new clients.
It seems like 9 times out of 10 the potential client has had a really bad experience with another developer at some point... overcharged and under-delivered, non-working code, etc etc.
What's the root cause here? All these bad apples out there make my job a lot harder.
- peteypao 16y agoOr making your job easier... with so many bad apples, isn't it easier to stand above the rest?
- bradleyjoyce 16y agoI suppose you could argue that... in my experience, no matter how successful your portfolio, potential clients that don't really understand the work/skill involved still easily get stuck at price
- peteypao 16y agoYour portfolio on velocis.us looks impressive. How much do you charge your clients?
- bradleyjoyce 16y agowe generally charge and hourly rate that is a bit below market price (in comparison to other shops I know, and individual ruby devs) :-)
- coderdude 16y ago(This comment is focused mainly on web developers.) It's a young and immature field. The clients are usually ignorant of the requirements and the level of quality to expect. This breeds a lot of half-ass developers and snake oil salesmen. I've personally known a few people who called themselves "web designers" but the work they create is God awful. Get-rich-quick types tend to want to jump on board to milk money from people. Web development is a great field for those kind of people. SEO is another.
- rewind 16y agoActually, I think the field is pretty mature at this point. I think it's more an issue of that fact that the barrier to entry is so low and that if someone has a hard time identifying a bad developer, they'll have a hard time identifying a good one too.
- coderdude 16y agoI'm framing that statement in perspective to almost all other imaginable fields of work. I'll concede that it may not be the cause for all the bad developers -- low barrier to entry seems like a much more likely cause, but I do not believe that this field has matured yet. Almost no one on the planet was selling web development services just 18 years ago, so it stands to reason that the field is not very mature yet. At least in my opinion.
- vegetables 16y agoSeveral reasons. Here are are the ones I can quickly think of: 1. Lots of money for a product that customers can't really inspect before paying. 2. Same as #1, but simpler: lots of money. 3. The customer. Feature-creep and a lack of vision can really dismantle a project in it's nascent stages. I've seen many a project fall victim to this. 4. Lack of testing. This is usually caused by #5 and #6 below. 5. Deadlines + customer's constantly changing scope can == bad code (at times). 6. Like @coderdude said, the field itself (and it's workers) are generally immature (and therefore haven't learned best business practices - or best practices at all, for that matter). 7. Web DESIGNERS != Web DEVELOPERS. Many, many customers don't know this (you'd be surprised).
- brudgers 16y agoPotential Clients who are highly satisfied with another developer are much less likely to call you. I suspect there may be some sample bias.
- bradleyjoyce 16y agothis is probably true to some extent