Outsourcing modx development

Hello,

Has anyone here outsourced custom modx coding? Just wanted to know your experiences and how expensive it is.

Development would basically be extending my site to integrate several social features within the site. Users can register, leave comments, and interact with other social features. An example would be the ability to answer questions posted by other users and vote on which answer in the best.

I have a solid development background and could likely do this myself but haven’t fooled around with custom databases in ModX and imagine it would take a solid investment of time to learn how.

Thanks!

MODx Revolution is a dream to code, especially with custom databases. I know this isn’t answering your question directly, but give learning it a go before outsourcing, and it will probably save you more time than finding, monitoring, and paying someone else would take up. Here’s a crash-course that worked for me:

Go on GitHub and download the "Doodles" (example custom database) snippet: https://github.com/splittingred/Doodles. You can test out the Doodles package in the MODx repository to see what it does, but the GitHub version includes the build package. Then use Notepad++ or your program of choice to file search and replace case-sensitively Doodles, Doodle, doodles, etc... with your package name, and do the same with the file names. Finally, edit /core/componenets/doodles/model/schema/doodles.mysql.schema.xml with your database details, update a few other files with the new table field names (especially doodles.grid.js and getlist.php), and run the following files: build.schema.php (which will generate the remaining files you need from your schema.xml file) and build.transport.php (which will generate the package ready for installation).

The first time I did this required a few hours of troubleshooting (I had missed a few words in the search and replace), but now I have a "base" build package to work off of and can make just about any custom database component I need in half an hour of search and replace and tweaking. Whenever I need to add features, I just browse github for other build packages (especially splittingred) to use as examples and add/ remove as necessary. For example, I borrowed heavily from the Quip package to add plugins, events, system settings, etc.... I ended up merging the Quip and Doodles packages for a good level of flexibility.

Once you have the package installed, it’s even easier to access. Refer to http://rtfm.modx.com/display/xPDO20/xPDOQuery and just replace $xpdo-> with $modx-> to explain the examples you find.

Finally, my 2cents on outsourcing: I have looked to outsource some work when I’ve been too busy. However, people familiar in MODx are rare compared to people familiar in PHP and justifiably charge higher for MODx work. Now that I’ve learned how to make my own custom packages, I can’t imagine spending all that time finding someone .

Quote from: Oleg at Mar 09, 2011, 06:20 PM

...However, people familiar in MODx are rare compared to people familiar in PHP and justifiably charge higher for MODx work. Now that I’ve learned how to make my own custom packages, I can’t imagine spending all that time finding someone .

What do you mean "people familiar in MODx are rare compared to people familiar in PHP.."?

Why do you say "charge higher for MODx work.."? I mean in some cases MODx let’s developers to use very flexible MODx API which cuts the time of development and correspondingly the time and costs. I was thinking there is no difference in work 1 hour cost between developing in pure php and with MODx API, is there really?

Learning the MODx API takes time and effort, and either way, you will need core PHP skills. In a ’normal’ market choice between two devs - one who knows the API and one who doesn’t - the client would go for the one with the API skills. As that dev is now in demand (compared to the other dev), he can charge higher rates. The ’art’ in business, is for the API developer to charge at such a rate that they remain competitive against the PHP dev over time - eg charging 120% (relative to the PHP dev) for developing 50% faster.

In a perfect market, PHP dev sees what’s going on and learns MODx API, thereby increasing the supply of API labour, and lowering rates across the board. There are, of course, many other factors that come into play - not least how good a salesperson the two devs are....

There’s an old maxim in procuring programming. You can either have quality, speed, or cost, but not all three.

Quote from: modx.customize at Mar 10, 2011, 05:59 AM

What do you mean "people familiar in MODx are rare compared to people familiar in PHP.."?

Why do you say "charge higher for MODx work.."?

It’s not so much that MODx developers charge higher than others, but statistically it is harder to find cheaper rates. Say you can find 1000 PHP/ Drupal/ Joomla/ etc... developers charging between $20/hr and $200/hr, with an average of $60 (making up numbers here and ignoring quality). However, you might be able to only find 20 MODx developers charging between $50/hr and $70/hr. It’s not that MODx developers charge more on average, it’s that the cheaper rates are less available since you have less of a range. And odeclas is right, you can mark up when you specialize. That’s been my experience: I’ve found listings for hundreds of PHP developers, but only a handful that know MODx.

Guess I really need to up my rates? Lol

At this point demand & supply is definitely playing a role in MODX developer wages. I’m a student, and develop on the side... I could probably find enough work for full time development without any problems though. Heck, without advertising I was looking for work at all.


To get back to the topic, I am being hired by full-service agencies (or just companies that could do with an extra MODX hand) and the experiences are good. Everybody gets to do what they do best, and of course you have to take a plunge and hope to find someone that delivers quality. When you do, you will find that you will save time by hiring someone who knows what they’re doing.


I do agree with Oleg though. If you have the developers background, you may want to try it out yourself as well. The hardest thing I ran into myself was ExtJS, but that’s not even required - you could just use tables should you so please

Quote from: Mark at Mar 11, 2011, 09:40 AM

Guess I really need to up my rates? Lol

+1

Quote from: modx.customize at Mar 11, 2011, 10:14 AM

Quote from: Mark at Mar 11, 2011, 09:40 AM

Guess I really need to up my rates? Lol

+1

+3 (granted wait till after we finish up Handyman and such )

You guys know that I made up those numbers, right? I have no idea what the averages are.

I personally don’t have an hourly rate and always charge by the project, with proper quotes ahead of time. I’ve found my clients respond much better to this, and it give me the flexibility to charge lower for projects I’m interested in (usually programming I haven’t done before).

What do you base your project prices on though?

I would assume a time estimate times an hourly wage... that’s what I do

Oleg, those random numbers you posted seem to pretty much match what I heard from others and some online statistics.