# Outsourcing

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/outsourcing/108725>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 6, 2007, 11:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/outsourcing/108725 "2007-07-06T11:27:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b4bc9f/32.png) [@harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/harm)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 11:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/outsourcing/108725/1 "2007-07-06T11:27:07Z")

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Hi all!

Currently I am trying to convince a company to make the switch to RoR  
as I did a couple of years ago. They are quite willing to do so but as  
they regularly outsource programming tasks they want to know if they  
still can when they make the switch. I have no experience in this and  
was wondering if anyone on the list might have.  
By outsourcing the company means using [rentacoder.com](http://rentacoder.com). (Are there  
other alternatives to rentacoder?)

With kind regards,  
Harm

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**Author:** ![harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b4bc9f/32.png) [@harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/harm)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 12:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/outsourcing/108725/2 "2007-07-06T12:07:13Z")

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Yes! there are many ROR projects that are outsourced via Rent a Coder,  
elance and scriptlance etc

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**Author:** ![harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b4bc9f/32.png) [@harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/harm)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2007, 1:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/outsourcing/108725/3 "2007-07-07T01:45:54Z")

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harm wrote:

> Currently I am trying to convince a company to make the switch to RoR  
> as I did a couple of years ago. They are quite willing to do so but as  
> they regularly outsource programming tasks they want to know if they  
> still can when they make the switch. I have no experience in this and  
> was wondering if anyone on the list might have.  
> By outsourcing the company means using [rentacoder.com](http://rentacoder.com). (Are there  
> other alternatives to rentacoder?)

The best possible way to develop is with programmers onsite. That way  
you  
can continuously review their progress, let them ask stupid questions,  
and  
generally prevent them from working too hard on unimportant features.

Rails makes that process very easy using unit tests. Your best situation  
would be to hire a programmer with _any_ web experience, and temporarily  
hire a Rails consultant to train them (\>cough\< you) to write unit tests  
as  
they write the tested code.

All these simple practices generally make a very few onsite programmers  
much  
_much_ more efficient than a horde of off-site programmers.

–  
Phlip  
[Test Driven Ajax (on Rails) [Book]](http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510657/)  
“Test Driven Ajax (on Rails)”  
assert\_xpath, assert\_javascript, & assert\_ajax

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**Author:** ![harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b4bc9f/32.png) [@harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/harm)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 2:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/outsourcing/108725/4 "2007-07-09T14:12:00Z")

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On 09 Jul 2007, at 13:43, harm wrote:

> I agree with Phlip that on-site programmers are best. However there  
> are problems which can be easily framed and sent of elsewhere. For  
> example a database import where the end format is known.  
> And I very much agree with you on the best situation. 🙂 And I am  
> trying to obtian exactly that.

Although I must say that a good project manager at the company you’re  
outsourcing to can make offsite outsourcing a real joy. My company  
has outsourced a Rails project to Lunar Logic Polska and Paul Klipp  
has done a fantastic job at managing the project, our customer was  
very happy with the application.

On the other hand, some projects demand a closer interaction between  
the developers and onsite developers can become a necessity (although  
they tend to be more expensive).

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

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**Author:** ![harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b4bc9f/32.png) [@harm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/harm)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 1:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/outsourcing/108725/5 "2007-07-09T13:43:56Z")

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I agree with Phlip that on-site programmers are best. However there  
are problems which can be easily framed and sent of elsewhere. For  
example a database import where the end format is known.  
And I very much agree with you on the best situation. 🙂 And I am  
trying to obtian exactly that.  
Thanks for the comments!

Harm