there's another route. break down what you want to do and you can basically get it done for free. For example:
--------------
Requirements.
1. requisition an Amazon EC2 instance for me.
No other steps.
--------------
then a tech guy on IRC will do it for $5. Next, you want to get someone to do the following. I need a programmer to put a plain rails installation on my amazon ec2 instance.
--------------
Requirements.
1. Install rails on my amazon server.
No other steps, no configuration.
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Then someone from IRC will do it for you, shittily, for $10.
Someone will do it for you for $5. Next you would say:
"I need to get this rails form working." and link to the page showing the non-working form.
--------------
Requirements doc.
1. Whenever a user submits their name and address on the following rails page __________ it should be added to a database connected to rails.
There are no other requirements.
--------------
Someone on IRC will do it for $10.
Next you would requisition a non-working table of other names who have used that field. Next you requisition someone to get the table working.
Next you requisition a change from "name and email address" to the REAL point of your form. Maybe you're building an online trading platform where people can enter information about collectable turds, and you will be monetizing this.
--------------
Requirements doc.
1. Change "name" and "email address" to two different fields I give you, keeping the application working.
No other requirements.
--------------
Someone will do it for you for $10.
In this way you can boil the chicken slowly, and by the time you've blown through $85 you'll have a complete turd-trading platform with built-in recurring billing and a % commission your turd platform takes on every transaction.
Yes, not everyone can pull it off. Your main risk is that you have to kind of screen the fifty-sixty programmers who will be comming in and out of your amazon instance.
But with a little dedication, you can pretty much get unlimited work for free and get to keep 100% of it. The point is to only do one super-simple thing at a time.
I guess you have to have some technical understanding of what's happening behind the scenes to pull this off though. Maybe enroll in a quick seminar :)
> I guess you have to have some technical understanding of what's happening behind the scenes to pull this off though.
I think this is the major problem. If you have enough technical understanding to explain the problem in that much detail, you likely have enough technical understanding to do it yourself. Most of those steps you can do yourself faster than you can write out the detailed requirements for it.
sure, this will work if what your doing can be generated essentially off templates.
this will start breaking down when you start building components which are inter-related. every incremental change now requires understanding of the ball of spaghetti that exists.
This is a neat way of doing this, thanks for sharing! I'm going to try this out if I get the chance, any irc network in particular you found effective?
--------------
Requirements.
1. requisition an Amazon EC2 instance for me.
No other steps.
--------------
then a tech guy on IRC will do it for $5. Next, you want to get someone to do the following. I need a programmer to put a plain rails installation on my amazon ec2 instance.
--------------
Requirements.
1. Install rails on my amazon server.
No other steps, no configuration.
--------------
Then someone from IRC will do it for you, shittily, for $10.
Next, you want to do the hard part. "I need someone to create a page in my rails installation that says Enter your email address in the box below. It doesn't have to work. Like this: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_for...
--------------
Requirements doc:
1. The following code translated into a rails app that doesn't have to do anything:
- http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_for...
There are no other requirements.
--------------
Someone will do it for you for $5. Next you would say:
"I need to get this rails form working." and link to the page showing the non-working form.
--------------
Requirements doc.
1. Whenever a user submits their name and address on the following rails page __________ it should be added to a database connected to rails.
There are no other requirements.
--------------
Someone on IRC will do it for $10.
Next you would requisition a non-working table of other names who have used that field. Next you requisition someone to get the table working.
Next you requisition a change from "name and email address" to the REAL point of your form. Maybe you're building an online trading platform where people can enter information about collectable turds, and you will be monetizing this.
--------------
Requirements doc.
1. Change "name" and "email address" to two different fields I give you, keeping the application working.
No other requirements.
--------------
Someone will do it for you for $10.
In this way you can boil the chicken slowly, and by the time you've blown through $85 you'll have a complete turd-trading platform with built-in recurring billing and a % commission your turd platform takes on every transaction.
Yes, not everyone can pull it off. Your main risk is that you have to kind of screen the fifty-sixty programmers who will be comming in and out of your amazon instance.
But with a little dedication, you can pretty much get unlimited work for free and get to keep 100% of it. The point is to only do one super-simple thing at a time.
I guess you have to have some technical understanding of what's happening behind the scenes to pull this off though. Maybe enroll in a quick seminar :)
Good luck with your turd platform.