finding a good programmer?

[thinkingbig]

Hi

thanks to some invaluable advice from members of this forum, i have shaped my idea into something that has huge potential. The only problem is i need a software programmer/developer, who can be my co-partner. None of my friends are into computer science. Just needed advice about how i should find a good programmer. I am at University currently. Should send a mass email to everyone in the IT department?

cheers

 

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[Icy]

Definitely go and talk to the computer science teachers and find out who does a lot of programming OUTSIDE the class. Don't worry about just those who get good grades, but don't do anything outside of class. It is very important to get someone that loves it.

On a side note any chance you can give me a PM about what you're looking to create? I've programmed games purely for fun for years, and could possibly help depending on the goal.

 

[thinkingbig]

thanks for the reply. I am in Australia and i need to create a website similar to facebook. I do not have much experience in computer programming. I have the business idea and marketing skills to cover half what i need to do. The other half is the computing.

That's good advice. I might ask one of my University lecturers if he can do something for me. Then again, he might be too busy to take on the project i have in mind.

One question, does anyone know how facebook, Hi5 and other social networking sites make money and attrach users?

 

[Smooth]

Have you tried finding a freelancer?

 

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[thinkingbig]

^no. I am scared about someone stealing my idea. I will try to contact my Univesity IT department and talk to a willing student. I guess, because we would both be students, we would share a connection and will be starting from scratch using our own money for a shared goal. I thought about a freelancer, but i would have to pay and i would not get the same type of a connection with him then say with a university student. Also, being on campus, communication with a student would be much easier.

I was wondering if it is easy to create a myspace based networking site?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Have you tried PartnerUp.com?

 

[imoz]

Is it "easy" to create a generic social networking site? Yes for a competent programmer. Is it "easy" to make one that scales to millions of concurrent users, etc... not really. Look at MySpace for example, the back end infrastructure for caching and data partitioning is very sophisticated and isn't something you whip up in a week.

What you might consider, rather than starting from scratch, is buying an off the shelf package or finding a free/open source package as a base to start from and see how far you can get through configuration and available modules, then spend your programming time on custom modifications, modules, and enhancements to adapt it to your specific needs. There's tons out there, just google it I think TechCrunch or a similar site had a comparison of a bunch of the off the shelf solutions a few years back.

As far as how social networking sites achieve monetization... advertising. Operating their own pay per click platform.

How did they generate traffic? Advertising, SEO, getting bands to advertise for them, etc. Viral marketing.

 

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[Clownfish]

Thinkingbig, I am in the same boat as you (and also an Aussie!). Sorry to derail your thread slightly, but as my question relates to the topic I figured I'd shoot.

Since I don't have much experience in the IT field, and will possibly need a programmer in the near future, how do I go about finding a GOOD programmer? I have a few potential candidates through friends and other online communities, but how do I know if they're any good or not? Do I gauge it on personality, past experience, past projects, price? I'd assume there's plenty of programmers out there, so how do I go about weeding out the good from the bad?

 

[EastWind]

Thinkingbig, I am in the same boat as you (and also an Aussie!). Sorry to derail your thread slightly, but as my question relates to the topic I figured I'd shoot.

Since I don't have much experience in the IT field, and will possibly need a programmer in the near future, how do I go about finding a GOOD programmer? I have a few potential candidates through friends and other online communities, but how do I know if they're any good or not? Do I gauge it on personality, past experience, past projects, price? I'd assume there's plenty of programmers out there, so how do I go about weeding out the good from the bad?

recommendation is the only way. you don't know what makes a good programmer, you have no experience is software development. so you can find someone that has used a good programmer in the past who can recommend em to you, or you can speak to the owner's of their past projects and hear how they feel.

 

[thinkingbig]

Thinkingbig, I am in the same boat as you (and also an Aussie!). Sorry to derail your thread slightly, but as my question relates to the topic I figured I'd shoot.

Since I don't have much experience in the IT field, and will possibly need a programmer in the near future, how do I go about finding a GOOD programmer? I have a few potential candidates through friends and other online communities, but how do I know if they're any good or not? Do I gauge it on personality, past experience, past projects, price? I'd assume there's plenty of programmers out there, so how do I go about weeding out the good from the bad?

hey

nice to meet an aussie. Do you mind telling what online community you used? What i have done is put up an advertisedment in the IT newsgroup at my Uni. Hope that works.

I suggest that you do not necessarily look for how GOOD a programmer is? With a partner, you need more of enthusiam and support then being really really good at what they are. You will be in it together during the peaks and troughs of your venture, so loyalty and enthusiam far outweighs being an EXCELLENT programmer. Well, at least, that is how i am approaching it, when i am on the search for a programmer.

cheers

 

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[JHosche]

Some advice if you're looking at something facebook style - look into someone who has skills in Joomla or Drupal. Those are both CMS (Content Management Systems) which make maintaining and building massive websites a whole lot easier. Plus they're opensource (aka free) and at least I can speak for Joomla - there are modules/extensions to help you with a social networking site. Mind you its not something as simple as point and click to do - but once you get the hang of it, it's easy to maintain.

Anyway, hope that helps. I just had to come up with a similar solution for a project at work and I ended up developing a multi-national webportal using Joomla and everyone is rather pleased with it.