

Ask HN: Why are there so many bad developers? - bradleyjoyce

As someone who runs a software development consultancy I'm constantly talking to potential new clients.<p>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.<p>What's the root cause here? All these bad apples out there make my job a lot harder.
======
vegetables
Several 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
Potential Clients who are highly satisfied with another developer are much
less likely to call you. I suspect there may be some sample bias.

~~~
bradleyjoyce
this is probably true to some extent

------
coderdude
(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
Actually, 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
I'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.

------
peteypao
Or making your job easier... with so many bad apples, isn't it easier to stand
above the rest?

~~~
bradleyjoyce
I 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
Your portfolio on velocis.us looks impressive. How much do you charge your
clients?

~~~
bradleyjoyce
we generally charge and hourly rate that is a bit below market price (in
comparison to other shops I know, and individual ruby devs)

:-)

