Slashdot Mirror
How Do I Get Open Source Programs Written For Me?
An anonymous reader writes "I am a biomedical researcher interested in having general-purpose, scientific programs developed and released as open source. Interface design and reusability of the code are of primary importance to me. For my purpose, Cocoa applications relying on Core Data seem to be the best way to get the job done quickly. While I have some programming experience, I have few connections to the industrial world. So my question to Slashdot readers is: how do I find someone (individual or business) to write high-quality programs? Are there reputable contractors experienced in Cocoa? What sort of rates should I expect, to use as a starting point in negotiations? Would a requirement that programs are released as open source make it more or less difficult to find someone to do the job?"
I am a biomedical researcher interested in having general-purpose,
scientific programs...for my purpose, Cocoa applications...
Whooo hoo ho ha HAAAA ha ha ha!
While I have some programming experience, I have few connections to the
industrial world.
Don't feel bad, Mac users are living jokes not taken seriously by anybody
except for their own kind.
how do I find someone (individual or business) to write high-quality
programs? Are there reputable contractors experienced in Cocoa?
Try Starbucks, maybe you can find 1 or 2 candidates with experience in
writing scientific applications for the iPhone.
What sort of rates should I expect, to use as a starting point in
negotiations?
Expect a 500% "Oooh, shiny" markup right off the bat. Though this is the
going rate for COBOL programmers, experienced Cocoa developers usually ask
for additional perks such as clothing allowances for Banana Republic.
Umm... OS X is BSD.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
And good on you.
Mac zealots, UNIX/Linux zealots, Windows zealots, and the one lonely Plan 9 zealot really all need to get a life. Deflation of their egos is generally welcomed by everybody other than them - though more often than not attempts just bounce off their mindless rhetoric, circular reasoning, and utter unshakable certainty. The more factually incorrect their beliefs the better.
The Mac people are perhaps the worst. (Note: Many, many years ago when Mac OS 7 was new I used to be one of them - argh!). They can change their story in an instant. "Intel sucks, it's slow, the PowerPC 704e/G3/G4/G5 is the best thing ever" -> "PowerPC is old and crappy, get an Intel CPU, they're great". And that's just one of the more recent examples. Grr. Suuuure, Pascal is the great new language of the future.
Then again, there's nothing quite like hearing a Linux zealot patiently explaining to someone who's having issues with Quicken on their home PC how much better off they'd be if they just install Gentoo or build Linux-from-scatch then install and configure SQL Ledger. The fact that the user in question can't even install the update to Quicken that'd fix the issue by clicking "install update" when automatically prompted doesn't seem to faze them. (This is being written on an Ubuntu box that's also compiling a test SCSI controller bugfix patch in qemu svn, by the way; I'm a Linux user but still loathe the zealots.)
Windows zealots ... well, I'm not sure I've met one. Weird, really, given that it's exactly the same sort of mix of great and awful as the other major platforms, albeit with different pluses and minuses.
Props for effort, but I think your comment probably bounced off just as thoroughly as they usually do.
Oh, and did I mention the use of a sensible file system instead of HFS+ ?
The same goes for Linux.
In OS X's defense, there is an option to format a drive as "UNIX Filesystem".