markwaldin
says,
These folks have some very good qualities but you should be aware of the downside and decide for yourself if you can live with the limitations.
The pros are that I think they are skilled developers and can build code. They are also interested in making the customer happy and are willing to work hard to do that. They communicate frequently and keep you up to date. What this means is you are most likely to get what you were looking for in the end.
The negatives come about from a few things but I would say the main source is the lack of a structured approach to development. When I connected with them, instead of putting a design proposal together for me they said they would go ahead and write demo code and show it to me to prove they could do what I wanted. That should have been a red flag.
Once they did the demo code it turned into a back and forth skype interaction of saying what was wrong and what was right. They never did a spec and I never signed off on one. That created many problems.
It would be hard to design code this way for anybody but working with a team in India is even harder. I found that while they understand English as well as me (maybe better) the comprehension was lacking. From the start I said I just wanted an api .... in this case just a function call to php. They developed an entire control panel I did not want. No matter how many times I said I wanted an api I could not get them to develop it.
Eventually, of course, their control panel required access to the same function call I needed so it was there buried in the code. I just had to search for it. Also it was executed in a way that was not what I asked for but I will live with that as it still does what I need fundamentally.
They started with somebody else's code that they must have developed for another client because what they delivered me included many, many extraneous files (over a dozen js files for example) that had nothing to do with my project. Sloppy.
With this uncontrolled process the code development stretched out to two and one half months for what should have taken two weeks. They would say it was due to my changing my mind but in reality I never changed my mind. They just never understood what I wanted and didn't bother to nail it down in a design spec
The delay meant they didn't get paid quickly and their patience wore thin. They started calling me "Boss" and "Bro" on Skype in a derogatory way and suggesting that I was thick headed and not able to understand things. Here is an example of the Skype dialog to show what I mean:
Ashok, 7:52 AM
Boss, try to understand , i am trying to help you and deliver what you want
Ashok, 9:24 AM
i hope , you will not change your mind again
i am trying to help you , i wish you help me too
i expect same from you
Summary: they can do a good job. You MUST act as the project manager. You must control them tightly and make sure they follow a good design process. Hope this helps.
for
Routine to pull web site information
on Sep 04, 2019