How easy is it to find/get a quality programmer to maintain/improve code?

[Name Trader]

I use a programmer I found on Fiverr several years ago. Generally, I would say I've been basically reasonably happy with his work and his charging. Else I would not be still using him today. Would I say I'm ecstatic. No. Would I say I'm happy? Yes. I think it's actually quite difficult to find someone prepared to do this kind of work, on an adhoc basis, reliably. How many do you have to try before you are satisfied? I've tried more than a few. Also the more you try, the more you are exposing yourself to intellectual property theft. IMHO.

Why this post? Well. I recently changed host. My new host, which I actually like, has been very critical of my programmer. Quite quick to criticize his programming skills. Not being a programmer, it's difficult to really understand why. I would say, his programming skill are more than just adequate. Not super-skilled, but then not a slouch either. With satisfactory results. I don't get groundbreaking code. But I get what I ask for. Which is probably limited by my ability to know what is possible. Sometimes I do wonder if I'm getting top quality code. But I do receive code which works.

But anyway. This got me thinking about whether or not it is time to check out the market for another programmer. I'm spending approx $200 a month on average. Sometimes nothing. Nothing guaranteed. What other options are available to me.

 

[CraigD]

Finding someone to do sporadic work, whom you trust, will not be so easy.

I think you need to ask your host what is wrong specifically with his code.

Have they recommended a programmer to you?

 

[Name Trader]

Finding someone to do sporadic work, whom you trust, will not be so easy.

I think you need to ask your host what is wrong specifically with his code.

Have they recommended a programmer to you?

Yeah I know that. I have. But it was beyond my understanding.* Nope. And I don't expect they will. If they did. I'd be out of there, asap.

* I asked my programmer about it. But his solution was to just remove the errant code. Which he claims the host doesn't fully understand. (without going into full details). It's kinda six of one, half a dozen of another situation. As far as I can tell, truthfully.

My host is a pretty good, if still only small-to-medium size. They use exactly the software/hardware I want to use. And they're fast. Support has been good if a bit brutal at times. I don't really want to change. They have been quite helpful to me too. After a string of large previous hosts in quick succession, who I felt were more after my money than care about their service (my impression only).

But this is basically off-base from what I wanted to ask about in this message. Which you captured in your first sentence.

 

[Bertrell]

I'd like to say I'm in a similar situation, although I might have a bit more programming experience than you. I say if you're getting what you asked for, then that's a win. Could something be done differently or improved upon (code-wise)? Perhaps.

I'm surprised the new host (or whoever is being critical of your programmer) hasn't offered more insight into their perspective. Could they be right? Maybe, but without something concrete to back up their position, they seem bitter or maybe they want ALL of your business dollars (lol). If the goal is to help the customer/client succeed/advance, then they should probably be more specific, or at least try to explain it in a manner that you can fully understand.

 

[Name Trader]

I'd like to say I'm in a similar situation, although I might have a bit more programming experience than you. I say if you're getting what you asked for, then that's a win. Could something be done differently or improved upon (code-wise)? Perhaps.

I'm surprised the new host (or whoever is being critical of your programmer) hasn't offered more insight into their perspective. Could they be right? Maybe, but without something concrete to back up their position, they seem bitter or maybe they want ALL of your business dollars (lol). If the goal is to help the customer/client succeed/advance, then they should probably be more specific, or at least try to explain it in a manner that you can fully understand.

If I've given you the impression that my host is right most of the time. I'm sorry. Right or Wrong is sometimes not as clear as Black and White I'd say realistically I believe my programmer/host technician about equally. Sometimes even on the same point we are discussing my host can be helpful and abrasive, at different times. I mostly get on well with him. I still want to keep my host. They have a good service. I think sometimes he makes a good point. It's almost as if he takes a sadistic pleasure in it.

I think you make a good point about me getting mostly what I ask for from my programmer. I agree with that. But he is just that. A programmer. If I asked him to provide 3 design improvement options for a facelift of my website, I think he would have a problem in coming up with 3 options without me being intimately involved in the design of each option. Luckily I don't need a facelift . He has had a good if unsteady income from me over the last few years. Overall I've pleased with his service. There isn't much flare though. He does what he's asked to do. Which is what I want and pay for

I am daunted by the prospect of maybe looking for a replacement.

 

[Efe]

I really understand how difficult it can be to get a good programmer these days. I'm a programmer and the last time I tried searching for interns, it was a terrible experience.

That said, I will give you some examples on how you can differentiate Good programmers from programmers that are Just Beginners with basic CRUD knowledge. And I'll give it from a Tech and Non-Tech Perspective.

NON TECH
Most of the times you can tell good programmers from the way they chat with you.

• Willingness to show Portfolio: Programmers that are just beginning are not usually eager to show you their portfolio.
• Poor Portfolio: One of the best ways to detect bad/basic Web Developers is from the quality of their portfolio. Ask them to send you a few project that they have completed.
  
  Now it's easy to be easily tricked with this. Look out for things like:
  - Odd margins in places like the footer
  - No favicon
  - Extreme and meaningless animations
  - Dark foreground color on Dark background
  - Broken links
  
  I know these things might sound unreliable, but trust me professional programmers will never leave these undone for a project they are DONE WITH

TECH
If you are a developer and you have access to their codes just like in your case I think, you can look out for the following:

• Code Repetition: This is a major issue with beginners. Inexperienced Programmers tend to repeat code a lot. It is like an Evil Spirit,
• Lengthy and Dirty Code: If you find yourself having difficulty navigating the source code, it's probably not because you are a bad programmer, but because they are bad programmers.
  (Good Programmers do not just write codes that computers can understand, they write codes that humans can also understand)
• Lack of reasonable comments
• Hard Coding of CONSTANTS: This is another evil spirit in beginners. I suffered from this too. Look out for constants like App Name, API Endpoint, Configurations like DB config etc Generally, look out for values that are just repeated around the code base and are not in some form of variable.

I could actually go on and on but this post is already too long.

Now, if you are currently in search of a good programmer, feel free to inbox me, I'm sure we could work something out.

 

[Gube]

Did the host give an explanation of the problematic code?
It could be a ressource-intensive script for example (or triggering many PHP errors).
But they would only care if you are on a shared hosting environment, so it doesn't affect other customers.
Some hosts also monitors how people use the storage space so the clients don't start using shared hosting as a cloud backup for their personnal files

 

[poweredbyme]

I use a programmer I found on Fiverr several years ago. Generally, I would say I've been basically reasonably happy with his work and his charging. Else I would not be still using him today. Would I say I'm ecstatic. No. Would I say I'm happy? Yes. I think it's actually quite difficult to find someone prepared to do this kind of work, on an adhoc basis, reliably. How many do you have to try before you are satisfied? I've tried more than a few. Also the more you try, the more you are exposing yourself to intellectual property theft. IMHO.

Why this post? Well. I recently changed host. My new host, which I actually like, has been very critical of my programmer. Quite quick to criticize his programming skills. Not being a programmer, it's difficult to really understand why. I would say, his programming skill are more than just adequate. Not super-skilled, but then not a slouch either. With satisfactory results. I don't get groundbreaking code. But I get what I ask for. Which is probably limited by my ability to know what is possible. Sometimes I do wonder if I'm getting top quality code. But I do receive code which works.

But anyway. This got me thinking about whether or not it is time to check out the market for another programmer. I'm spending approx $200 a month on average. Sometimes nothing. Nothing guaranteed. What other options are available to me.

A good coder is not the one who knows machine language.
A good coder is the one who builds algo well. You can not find such a coder.

What's the solution?
Learn algo if you don't know. Then a hire a coder who will translate your algo into a machine language or learn coding. But learning coding is not worth unless you will code daily. Because learning coding even in one language is not easy. Most coders know multiple languages.

Learning algo is easy. Algorithm is problem solving. All we build algorithms daily. But when it comes to computers you will need to be more specific as computers do only what you want, can't take initiative for undefined circumstances. You shouldn't leave gray areas and hope computers can handle it. No they can't.

 

[poweredbyme]

* I asked my programmer about it. But his solution was to just remove the errant code. Which he claims the host doesn't fully understand. (without going into full details).

You should trust your programmer word about hosting. Hosting limits everything unless it's a dedicated server. If he complained about hosting for "not understanding" then probably you didn't give him a dedicated server to work. Even dedicated servers have various limits at various levels. But "host not fully understand" complaint from a coder sounds like an issue related to the installed engines/sofware which have not been updated for a while (some linux distros like centos use outdated software or lack some essential things), or absence of something which would be installed if it was a dedicated server.

 

[Steven McEvoy]

Why this post? Well. I recently changed host. My new host, which I actually like, has been very critical of my programmer. Quite quick to criticize his programming skills. Not being a programmer, it's difficult to really understand why. I would say, his programming skill are more than just adequate. Not super-skilled, but then not a slouch either. With satisfactory results. I don't get groundbreaking code. But I get what I ask for. Which is probably limited by my ability to know what is possible. Sometimes I do wonder if I'm getting top quality code. But I do receive code which works.

What hosting provider do you use that actually looks at someone's website or code?? I have never heard of a web hosting company doing this or giving 2 shits.

 

[Name Trader]

What hosting provider do you use that actually looks at someone's website or code?? I have never heard of a web hosting company doing this or giving 2 shits.

Actually KnownHost.com my webhost for 4 years, is the best hosting I have ever encountered. There was never any just pointing at the code and harshly stating it was poorly coded. Forever polite. Always resolved. I've really regretted the 5 hosts I've had in a year since leaving them. Including some top hosts, who just stole my money. One hosts support staff simply just lied to me. My current host, WebHostPython, is about the best I've encountered since KnownHost. Admittedly, still a distant second to KnownHost. I'm persevering with this Host. They're fast. But should I ever change, I'm going back to KnownHost. WebHostPython, despite their tendancy to blame the code, have in fact looked at the code sometimes and told me how to fix. I think it's the only time in my long life that I've appreciated, schizophrenia

 

[Steven McEvoy]

Actually KnownHost.com my webhost for 4 years, is the best hosting I have ever encountered. There was never any just pointing at the code and harshly stating it was poorly coded. Forever polite. Always resolved. I've really regretted the 5 hosts I've had in a year since leaving them. Including some top hosts, who just stole my money. One hosts support staff simply just lied to me. My current host, WebHostPython, is about the best I've encountered since KnownHost. Admittedly, still a distant second to KnownHost. I'm persevering with this Host. They're fast. But should I ever change, I'm going back to KnownHost. WebHostPython, despite their tendancy to blame the code, have in fact looked at the code sometimes and told me how to fix. I think it's the only time in my long life that I've appreciated, schizophrenia

my question was why were they even looking?
Or did something happen on there server where they were blaming the code?

 

[Name Trader]

my question was why were they even looking?
Or did something happen on there server where they were blaming the code?

We are STILL investigating. Approx 50% of any replies (like on StackOverflow) seems to be saying it's in the SQL code. Which would be my ignorant 1st choice too. And we need to add code so that the we can read the error in PHP, which might hopefully be much more definitive about the error. It's strange. It's probably 1 error, which is producing the same piece of error for 3 lines of code. This can range from 0 (3) errors in a day to 100's of (3) errors in a day. Normally, when it's two or more errors at a time, the timestamp of each error is identical. To my ignorant point of view, this is the type of code which is the responsibility of the programmer to fix, but I think the host could be more helpful in resolving. It's quite possible, when it's 100's of times a day, that the server MIGHT be a contributory factor to the repeated errors with the same timestamp.

 

[Save Breach]

For long-term maintenance you are better off hiring a consultancy if you have a project or requirements of that scale. That's the best way to get on-demand service. Fiverr and Freelancer have developers who lift code from other places, use copyrighted content without proper credits and so on, and as a result, the quality is bad and such code is hard to maintain.

For quality, refactoring code, securing and maintaining code, freelancers are not sufficient IMHO, because most are incompetent.

And btw, we at SaveBreach offer fast development, and security pentesting services, serving mostly startups at the moment

Cheers

 

[Save Breach]

that the server MIGHT be a contributory factor to the repeated errors with the same timestamp.

Are you using shared hosting?

If yes, then we suggest migrating to VPS alternatives, that offer more control, then if required install a control panel in it as well. That way, all issues related to shared hosting services can be resolved as you would be managing your server yourself. Often shared hosting changes software like PHP version which may not be compatible with your codebase, in such situations with a VPS you can have your custom tailored environment with the required dependencies.

Cheers

 

[Name Trader]

Are you using shared hosting?

If yes, then we suggest migrating to VPS alternatives, that offer more control, then if required install a control panel in it as well. That way, all issues related to shared hosting services can be resolved as you would be managing your server yourself. Often shared hosting changes software like PHP version which may not be compatible with your codebase, in such situations with a VPS you can have your custom tailored environment with the required dependencies.

Cheers

I thank you for this and your previous post. As it has happens, yes we are using shared hosting. There was one piece of php code which my current host had to make unlimited for me to used their shared hosting. Which, I "think", they kinda overlooked when I was negotiating with them. I forget the exact name, but it was a processing timeout error (which didn't allow us to set it to unlimited), which had a limit on it, but they agreed to turn that to unlimited. It fixed the problem, and we have now fixed the code where it shouldn't be a problem even if the set it back to their standard. I am grateful for that. They are a small>mid-size hosting company as far as I can tell, they offer are competitive rates, no long term commitments (which I have been burned with other "supposedly" big hosts), top class hardware and software, makes my bare-bones websites load within about 2-3 seconds. There is a lot to like about them. And I am not in anyway trying to denigrate their services. I like what they do. I'd even recommend them. The "shared" aspects of their hosting is somewhat mitigated by using CloudLinux, and I purchased a dedicated IP. So I think I have the best hardware and software in the market. I'm not talking about a cheap server here. It's top of the line.

The only thing which pisses me off is their insistence that this current problem is a programmer problem, but make no comment when I point out that I'm getting the same error up to 100's of time with the same timestamp. I agree it's for a programmer to fix, but I don't think 100's of errors at the exact same time, is entirely normal for the server to be reporting. But they won't even look at it.

I'm actually fairly satisfied with my FIVERR programmer. But he only codes what I ask him to code, which is probably limited, by my own lack of knowledge of what could be achieved if I knew all the possibilities. How to find and select a consultancy to do this maintenance and development work. How do I protect my intellectual property rights, which have zero protection using a programmer on something like FIVERR.

 

[kam]

I thank you for this and your previous post. As it has happens, yes we are using shared hosting. There was one piece of php code which my current host had to make unlimited for me to used their shared hosting. Which, I "think", they kinda overlooked when I was negotiating with them. I forget the exact name, but it was a processing timeout error (which didn't allow us to set it to unlimited), which had a limit on it, but they agreed to turn that to unlimited. It fixed the problem, and we have now fixed the code where it shouldn't be a problem even if the set it back to their standard. I am grateful for that. They are a small>mid-size hosting company as far as I can tell, they offer are competitive rates, no long term commitments (which I have been burned with other "supposedly" big hosts), top class hardware and software, makes my bare-bones websites load within about 2-3 seconds. There is a lot to like about them. And I am not in anyway trying to denigrate their services. I like what they do. I'd even recommend them. The "shared" aspects of their hosting is somewhat mitigated by using CloudLinux, and I purchased a dedicated IP. So I think I have the best hardware and software in the market. I'm not talking about a cheap server here. It's top of the line.

The only thing which pisses me off is their insistence that this current problem is a programmer problem, but make no comment when I point out that I'm getting the same error up to 100's of time with the same timestamp. I agree it's for a programmer to fix, but I don't think 100's of errors at the exact same time, is entirely normal for the server to be reporting. But they won't even look at it.

I'm actually fairly satisfied with my FIVERR programmer. But he only codes what I ask him to code, which is probably limited, by my own lack of knowledge of what could be achieved if I knew all the possibilities. How to find and select a consultancy to do this maintenance and development work. How do I protect my intellectual property rights, which have zero protection using a programmer on something like FIVERR.

I would say it's more likely the hosting environment issue. Since you are using shared hosting and you have no say on which php version / MySql version will be deployed on the server.

If the code is designed for PHP7 and your hosting environment is PHP 6, it's not uncommon to get tons of error messages. The programmer will have to rewrite some of the code to make it works on those specific hosting environment. Moreover, Shared hosting companies are likely disable some php core functions to improve their security, in this case if those functions is used in php script, it will cause error. They will also set a relatively short timeout limit to ensure that no user can abuse their server resources. It's also foreseeable that there will be some invisible hard-limit on how much resources your website can access to. For example your website only able to access certain amount of memory, if your website hit those invisible limit you will get an error messages.

You have to keep that in mind, shared hosting companies are unwilling to grant you permission to access those disabled php functions or relax the resources restrictions. they will blame the script or programmer instead, for example, they will told you the code is with poor security and there's nothing wrongs with their server or service, etc. They will try their best to denied all of their responsibility, they will not tell you the fact that it's the code not compatible with their hosting environment.

Most the shared hosting are oversell. When the server reached it resources limit, the os will try to release some of the resources and at point of time it will generate tons of error under the same timestamp. But I don't think the web-host company will honestly tell you the true.

If you are serious about your website, you should at least go for a VPS, you are guarantee to have a dedicated IP while they're very affordable, only around $25 USD per month. For this budget you already can get a US Server with 128GB NVMe, 2CPU, 4GB RAM in Tier 1 Data Center. I personally recommend Vultr and I am using it too.
https://www.vultr.com/?ref=8716449-6G
You are welcome to use my link to get Free $100 credit to try it out.

My recommendation: To rent a VPS with at least 2 Cpu cores or otherwise the website will not stable under heavy cronjob / linux packages update.


Hope this helps,

Kam

 

[Name Trader]

Hi Kam,

Thank you very much for your insights. I understand everything you are saying. My current host uses top of the line hardware and software. I have no complaints about that. I understand that many hosts throttle back their php functions on shared hosting. I have sometimes been victim of this with my 5 hosts in less than a year. AND I have been very selective about my hosts. Which was why I negotiated with them about the php processing timeout error to be unlimited before I signed up. The problem was at that time was my database became too large with all the data I was storing, and the processing timeout error got triggered just backing up the database. We fixed that by splitting the database into two. The one part relating to the data, and the MUCH larger part relating to the statistics. So now the database would backup within the 3 minutes allotted. The host also suggested we used Javascript progress bars, which also helped a lot. So although the processing time out error is still set to unlimited, I'm confident that that could again be restricted, and the code would still work. As I've said. I like my current hosts offering. And support is generally helpful. Except for this 1 probably SQL error, which I'm asking my programmer to write code so that we can see very clearly what is causing the error, translating the SQL error into PHP. It is still possible that my host is is trying to avoid tackling this last error. And waiting to see any results from my programmers efforts first.

to give you some idea. My shared hosting is not cheap. I'm paying $23/month. For this I get E5 Octa Core Processor, 150GB NVMe SSD Storage, 5GB Memory, Unlimited Bandwidth, cPanel, Cloudlinux, Lightspeed, LSCache, Cloudflare with Railguns, Enterprise Level DDos protection, Free SSL Certificates, and a dedicated IP Address. The VPS with approx the same settings with 2GB Memory, 15TB Bandwidth, 4CPU Cores costs $41, which I cannot afford. So you can see it's a high-end shared hosting account. It's pretty much what I want specified, and would want if I ever moved (again). Which currently, I'm not looking to do. (Although I have considered it).

 

[Name Trader]

I really understand how difficult it can be to get a good programmer these days. I'm a programmer and the last time I tried searching for interns, it was a terrible experience.

That said, I will give you some examples on how you can differentiate Good programmers from programmers that are Just Beginners with basic CRUD knowledge. And I'll give it from a Tech and Non-Tech Perspective.

NON TECH
Most of the times you can tell good programmers from the way they chat with you.

• Willingness to show Portfolio: Programmers that are just beginning are not usually eager to show you their portfolio.
• Poor Portfolio: One of the best ways to detect bad/basic Web Developers is from the quality of their portfolio. Ask them to send you a few project that they have completed.
  
  Now it's easy to be easily tricked with this. Look out for things like:
  - Odd margins in places like the footer
  - No favicon
  - Extreme and meaningless animations
  - Dark foreground color on Dark background
  - Broken links
  
  I know these things might sound unreliable, but trust me professional programmers will never leave these undone for a project they are DONE WITH

TECH
If you are a developer and you have access to their codes just like in your case I think, you can look out for the following:

• Code Repetition: This is a major issue with beginners. Inexperienced Programmers tend to repeat code a lot. It is like an Evil Spirit,
• Lengthy and Dirty Code: If you find yourself having difficulty navigating the source code, it's probably not because you are a bad programmer, but because they are bad programmers.
  (Good Programmers do not just write codes that computers can understand, they write codes that humans can also understand)
• Lack of reasonable comments
• Hard Coding of CONSTANTS: This is another evil spirit in beginners. I suffered from this too. Look out for constants like App Name, API Endpoint, Configurations like DB config etc Generally, look out for values that are just repeated around the code base and are not in some form of variable.

I could actually go on and on but this post is already too long.

Now, if you are currently in search of a good programmer, feel free to inbox me, I'm sure we could work something out.

Hi Efe,

Sorry I was not ignoring you. Your post was well received. I've just had much too much manual workload collecting data to add information to the database. It's probably about 2-3 weeks manual work, with very long days. I'm not dissatisfied with my programmer. It's just my own programming skills are poor beginner level, if that. I can look at code and maybe tinker with it only to a very basic level. ie almost zero programming skills. I probably wouldn't know good code from bad code. Your tips you have given are helpful. Thank you. What I don't really see in him is much (artistic) flair. I don't really know if that is a good thing, or a bad thing. He translates what I ask him, but sometimes the beautifying touches aren't there. He will fix anything I ask (provided it's in the spec), but my beautifying request changes are still very limited in scope. I'm not an artist, but I can appreciate beautiful art

rgds
stu

 

[Name Trader]

You should trust your programmer word about hosting. Hosting limits everything unless it's a dedicated server. If he complained about hosting for "not understanding" then probably you didn't give him a dedicated server to work. Even dedicated servers have various limits at various levels. But "host not fully understand" complaint from a coder sounds like an issue related to the installed engines/sofware which have not been updated for a while (some linux distros like centos use outdated software or lack some essential things), or absence of something which would be installed if it was a dedicated server.

Hi. I have good quality, up to date hardware/software with my hosting. This host is probably only about 3 months old. I cannot afford a dedicated server, but I THINK, I'm quite happy with my hosting setup. My programmer has handled everything thrown at him by my host. I'm just now waiting for him to translate the SQL error to PHP format, so we can see what that tells us. This is the only error log error still outstanding. We shall soon (I hope) have more understanding about this error. And hopefully we will be able to fix it. And point the finger back at my host if we still have 100's of errors. I will use some of my better language, at that point

 

[Name Trader]

Did the host give an explanation of the problematic code?
It could be a ressource-intensive script for example (or triggering many PHP errors).
But they would only care if you are on a shared hosting environment, so it doesn't affect other customers.
Some hosts also monitors how people use the storage space so the clients don't start using shared hosting as a cloud backup for their personnal files

Hi Gube,

Yes. They said it was program related It appears to be an SQL error which really provides not good information in the error logs. We need to translate it to PHP to find out what's going on. Fix the code, and hopefully it will be resolved. If not. Then the ball is back in the hosts court

 

[kam]

Hi Stub,

I suggest you to download and run some php / mysql branchmark script on your server from time to time.
You may see a huge different in branchmark result from time to time. Peak hours are likely much slower.
By doing this, you will know whether the server assigned to you is oversell and causing problems.

Kam

 

[Name Trader]

Hi Stub,

I suggest you to download and run some php / mysql branchmark script on your server from time to time.
You may see a huge different in branchmark result from time to time. Peak hours are likely much slower.
By doing this, you will know whether the server assigned to you is oversell and causing problems.

Kam

I'll have to Google it! Thank you.

rgds
stu