Jon,
Your story about "lines of code" billing reminded me that back in the 70's (and later?) programming productivity was measured in lines-of-code. If I remember correctly, for Cobol 10 LOC / hour was considered very good (this factored in analysis and design time, not just writing code). I don't recall ever seeing any number for RPG. Also, I don't know if it included copy books or not.
Haven't read much about productivity measures for programmers in the last 15-20 years.
Jerry C. Adams
IBM System i Programmer/Analyst
B&W Wholesale
office: 615-995-7024
email: jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jon Paris
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 11:48 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Billable hours versus fixed bidding and flat rates for IBM i developers
I'm 100% in agreement with Simon's philosophy. I don't want to work
for people who don't value the fact that I'm honest about my
billings. In fact I have always tended to under bill rather than
over. I have however worked in situations where the client (assumedly
based on past experience) was convinced that the bill was being
loaded. On one occasion after a number of snide comments I offered to
re-do the bill because he was so convinced it was wrong. When he got
the revised bill it was for 15 hours more than the original. He
didn't whine so much after that.
I don't participate in the office birthday parties and such
- I'm not an employee, I'm a consultant.
I have to disagree with Michael on this point though. On a client
site if I'm doing my job right, most of the time I'm part of the team
- and as a team member would join such gatherings if invited - BUT - I
would also make very sure not to bill for the time.
Since it is Sunday - I'll share my best over-billing story. About 20
years ago the consulting house I was working for was called in to
recover a project where the prime contractors had been fired. We
couldn't understand why all the programs were so huge. 10s of
thousands of source lines in every program. Turns out that the
programs were developed and tested using COPY members for all file and
working variable definitions. But because the vendor was being paid by
the line of code, when it came to handing a program over to the
customer the COPY definitions (needed or not) were all manually copied
into the program source. Part of the reason that the system was such
a mess was that the handover point was only the beginning of the
customer test cycle. All changes made to fix problems were (you
guessed it) applied to the individual program. And even when a
problem recurred in other programs, it was fixed independently. Often
with a different method! Took a team of four several weeks to get
fixes to the copy books straightened out and then begin to sort out
the rest of the mess. The customer sued the first vendor - but the
contract was watertight and they quickly gave up - but they never
signed another "lines of code" contract!
Jon Paris
www.Partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com
midrange.com
