Never Pay For Application Development Services Again

Design: Free
Implementation: $5
Working System: Priceless

Part A:

1. Find an IT company willing to write a detailed quote for free.
2. Bully them until they either drop their price to $5, or they quit revising the quote.
3. If the IT company quits, then find another IT company, get them to write a 'more detailed' quote, based on the previous quote.
4. If the result is good enough to begin implementation, move on to part B.
5. Otherwise, back to step 2.

Part B:

1. Rename the quote document to 'detailed design'
2. Find an IT company willing to mock up a prototype based on the detailed design.
3. They should be willing to do this for free based on loose promises about a highly-paid implementation and deployment scenario. Other fantasies can be used to deceive.
4. If, despite all your best fairy tale stories, the IT company is not willing to do the prototype for free -- go to step 2.
5. If the prototype is good enough, put it into production. End.
6. Otherwise, find an IT company willing to 'take a look at a few bugs' in a prototype you've got.
7. They should be willing to do this for free based on loose promises about a highly-paid implementation and deployment scenario. Other fantasies can be used to deceive.
8. If, despite all your best fairy tale stories, the IT company is not willing to 'take a look at' (ie. resolve) the bugs for free -- go to step 6.

Part C:

1. Burn any invoices that show up.
2. Remove finger prints.
3. Delete emails.

Sometimes I feel that every engagement I've ever done is a variation on this theme.

Sometimes I think that I'm just looking at the same buggy code that passed my desk years ago.

It's been refactored, upgraded, downsized, deployed, reverse-engineered, obfuscated and reflected so many times that i barely recognise it, but no... it's the very same code...

i recognise the way the loops inside the loops call the loops outside the loops...

i recognise the way the validation code is duplicated in every form...

i recognise the way the embedded sql gets the buffer overrun to generate the javascript...

it's changed in so many ways, but the flavor is the same...

i've seen this thing before i just know it...

maybe i'll fix just one bug, then pass it on...

(back from holiday ;-) )

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