We are a startup in the US and want an application built in RoR. We area all business people and not IT people and we aren't ready to bring software development in house.
Anyone have good experiences with outsourced RoR development?
Any suggestions of good RoR outsource companies we should contact?
Any ones we should stay away from?
Thanks!
Bill
You can take a try to outsource your project on www.taskcity.com. It is said that their outsourcing service is pretty good.
You’ll probably find a lot of RoR development is outsourced, whether to local agencies or contractors, or internationally. You might want to try a directory like one of the following:
http://www.railsdevelopment.com/
http://freelance.railsdevelopment.com/
http://www.workingwithrails.com/
To find firms or developers meeting your requirements. It would also be worth ensuring that even if you don’t have development experience internally you do do some basic training (whether with the developers you hire or others) so you have a good sense of how to manage the project, what to expect of the developers, etc. That’s particularly important if the developers are some distance away and so unable to do regular face-to-face demos.
James.
Bill Barnes wrote:
We are a startup in the US and want an application built in RoR. We area all business people and not IT people and we aren't ready to bring software development in house.
Then why have you chosen Rails already? Sure, it's a fabulous set of technologies, but if none of you are technical folks, then you probably shouldn't be making technical decisions of this sort. Find a developer you like, and let him choose (or at least have input into) the technology.
Best,
“Find a developer you like, and let him choose (or at least have input into) the technology.”
I disagree.
Never let the developer dictate the technology. Choose whats right for the company in the short/medium and long term. What if the company/client gets duped into using some guy that only develops in Erlang? Yeah, ok, I dont know many developers who do, but i’ve come across similar situations before.
Why do so many big coporates choose Microsoft technology? Answer: The availability of relatively cheap, fairly good, developers at a drop of a hat.
Just my 2 cents…
Johan De Klerk wrote:
"Find a developer you like, and let him choose (or at least have input into) the technology."
I disagree.
Never let the developer dictate the technology. Choose whats right for the company in the short/medium and long term.
Right -- with significant input from the developer. Business people shouldn't be making tech decisions without technical input. The reverse is also true.
What if the company/client gets duped into using some guy that only develops in Erlang?
If he's the best guy for the job, and if Erlang is a good tool for the
job, what's wrong with that? Remember back in 2004 when these guys in
Chicago began developing Web apps in a language no one had heard of
outside Japan? 
(FWIW, Facebook has some features written in Erlang.)
Yeah, ok, I dont know many developers who do, but i've come across similar situations before.
What do you consider a similar situation?
Why do so many big coporates choose Microsoft technology? Answer: The availability of relatively cheap, fairly good, developers at a drop of a hat.
As I understand, MS developers are not cheap. Many of them are not that
good either. 
I think in many cases, the choice of MS technologies is
probably due to business people dictating technologies. (There's also
the fact that lots of people don't know about anything non-MS.)
Best,
Marnen, again, thanks for the input.
Johan De Klerk wrote:
"Find a developer
you like, and let him choose (or at least have input into) the
technology."
I disagree.
Never let the developer dictate the technology. Choose whats right for
the
company in the short/medium and long term.
Right – with significant input from the developer. Business people
shouldn’t be making tech decisions without technical input. The reverse
is also true.
How can business people make any reasonable tech decisions if they dont have technical knowledge? The challenge facing most small/medium sized companies with no in house IT staff, (outsourcing all work to development houses with excellent sales teams)
is the problem of choosing who to trust. Very few contractors (at least in this country) deliver products viable in the long term.
What if the company/client
gets
duped into using some guy that only develops in Erlang?
If he’s the best guy for the job, and if Erlang is a good tool for the
job, what’s wrong with that? Remember back in 2004 when these guys in
Chicago began developing Web apps in a language no one had heard of
outside Japan?
Just saying, some developers are so set in their ways they don’t consider the best tool for the job. They use the tool they know best.
(FWIW, Facebook has some features written in Erlang.)
Yeah, ok, I dont
know many developers who do, but i’ve come across similar situations
before.
What do you consider a similar situation?
Ever had the misfortune of inheriting a antique Perl or PHP or ASP system? Nuf said.
Why do so many big coporates choose Microsoft technology? Answer: The
availability of relatively cheap, fairly good, developers at a drop of a
hat.
As I understand, MS developers are not cheap. Many of them are not that
good either.
probably due to business people dictating technologies. (There’s also
the fact that lots of people don’t know about anything non-MS.)
MS developers are a dime a dozen. (at least here they are). Hell, I can get a Senior Dev C# job tmrw, even though I have not used MS technology in about 4 years. In fact, I got a call from an agent just the other day… maybe it’s just my location.
Management by magazine.
I have certain answers for you. Let me know if you are interested in communicating at raghubetter@gmail.com We can surely take ahead the discussion and make sure you are getting the right thing done from right people.
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