Re: Working as a PHP/database developer..

On Tuesday, December 2, 2003, at 09:45 PM, Video Populares et Optimates wrote:

What's the matter with re-using the code and charging the same rate for it? You're a business, and you're supposed to make money. I currently charge by the hour, but I'm trying whereever possible to move away from hourly rates into fixed price services. Why?

Perhaps I stated my views a bit rashly. I'm not of the opinion that it is wrong to re-use code, merely that I was wondering how to specify the hourly rate if doing so. Seeing now (even though I couldn't say I have large enough control group ;-) ) that it is common to re-use and charge as normal,

I wouldn't say it's common practice, but it makes good business sense to refine your tools to the point where they can be reused over and over with a lot less new code for each resale.

a) The client knows exactly what to expect in terms of price and result b) I don't spend half my days quoting every last detail of a job c) I have the opportunity to re-use code over and over, making a PROFIT, rather than braking even all the time

I totally agree with (a) and (b), but what about (c)? Is it that hard to make a profit if one actually has to put some work into it? I.e. do you consider PHP/db development to be a large competition-driven field (within the larger field of software/script dev)?

I don't understand the question.

Copyright is the simple answer, but it needs to be a) observed by your clients b) enforced by you when not observed by clients

Yes, I agree. But for (b), how can I enforce it since PHP code resides on servers. My scenario is this: I develop scripts for the (aforementioned web designers), cooperation ends and we go separate paths. Now how do I enforce my copyright when I have no insight into their other projects nor the web servers they work with?

I can't answer that -- you need to talk to lawyers and seek legal advice. All I know is that copyright laws are there to protect. The catch is that enforcing this protection usually takes money.

You can always compile your scripts, and supply them with compiled (encoded) products, rather than source scripts. This of course would depend on the copyright agreement you have with your clients.

This is actually totally new to me. Compiling scripts, storing the (encoded) products on the server. What are the formats? Standards? Web servers / RDBM's that recognize these formats?

[snip]

Compiling with Zend encoder or similar, as stated above.

Zend encoder. Okay! Though it partially answers my above question about encoding scripts, I would be grateful to get some more pointers on the technical nuts and bolts... (even though I probably can just start using the Zend encoder - always interested in learning more).

Encoded scripts can run on virtually any server running PHP, using the optimiser (?). Of course, you could read about it all on Zend.com. Justin French