An Avoidable Dilemma
A programmer from Freelancer.com was almost done with our project. So, I did some final testing to verify that the rest of the site still worked. Several pieces were broken.
When I asked him to fix it, he said they never worked in the first place.
I’m confident I checked the code before hand and it worked; he’s confident he checked it and it did not. Who’s right?
Lesson Learned
If the buyer and the programmer don’t agree on what already works before a project starts, there is huge potential for misunderstanding or abuse.
The Potential for Abuse:
- The buyer may be trying to get the programmer to fix bugs that were already there.
- The programmer may be trying to get out of fixing code that he broke on the rest of the site.
Even without intentional abuse, two good people can simply disagree and potentially scuttle a project — or end a perfectly good project with mutual bad reviews.
How Do We Avoid This?
Before you start a project, as a Buyer or a Programmer, agree on which part of the site already works — and which parts do not. That should save you from most instances of abuse or misunderstanding.
