When we were done talking about the project I asked how he got to me. Knowing that I wasn’t the first, second or even third developer he contacted I was curious. He had found his original developer through the NUG list and when that one fell through, the first developer pointed him to a second developer.
Due to an illness in the family the second developer was unable to get the project done in a timely manner so had to decline the project. At this point, the client Googled for REALbasic programmers and found the third developer who talked to him and then sent him my way.
Does that seem way to hard? Should it not be easier to find a REALbasic developer?
So here’s my list of resources for finding a REALbasic Developer. These are fairly generic so don’t think I’m just plugging BKeeney Software. 
Here’s My List:
• Use the Find a Consultant page on the REALbasic website. This will send you out on a mail list for people that want to talk to you. I’m on the list and I know of several other really fine developers that are on the list.
• Use the Association of REALbasic Professionals Find a Developer service. This service is available to paying members of the only professional association for REALbasic developers. Another ARBP feature is the web links section (currently woefully incomplete) that contains a listing of REALbasic blogs, consultants and other related RB sites. As the site matures and develops, these features will be handy. (Full Disclosure: I am one of the founders of ARBP and am the current president).
• You can post on the REALbasic Forums. Look around and see who is answering a lot of the questions. If they’re not consultants I bet they can point you to one or two that are.
• You can Google for REALbasic Developers, Programmers, and Contractors. As evidenced by the client it doesn’t always work.
So how would you find a REALbasic developer?
The great thing about Joomla is that it’s big, complex, and does everything.
The bad thing about Joomla is that it’s big, complex, and does everything.
No, that is not a contradiction. Joomla is a pretty amazing system. With just a little training a person can create rich, detailed and complex websites in weeks rather than months. Heck, if I had to do it all over again, I could probably do the same thing in the half the time.
My recommendation if you were to learn Joomla is to create two sites. The first with all the default data and the second with no data in it and then figure out how to add content to the blank one by drilling down into the pre-populated one. My other recommendation is to explore the modules very closely and figure out the relationship between them and menus.
One observation that suprised me was the shear amount of modules (open source and commercial) there is available for Joomla. The Joomla extensions directory must have hundreds of modules and plugins available for nearly every need. Another observation is that a lot of commercial development on Joomla is being done in Eastern European countries and their prices are quite a bargain.
Of course, my travails into Open Source software has lead me to a conclusion. OSS has poor documentation and if a commercial company put that level of effort into documentation we’d skewer them. Now that’s not to put down the efforts of what documentation they have because Joomla is a big and complex piece of software and they just went through a fairly major revision. In 6 months the documentation will most likely catch up. It makes me appreciate what companies do to either document the heck out of their software or make them so simple anyone can figure them out.
Many website CPanel’s have Joomla! as an option now as a single click install. It’s well worth exploring if you have a church group, or not for profit website you’re dealing with and you don’t want to be THE site master forever. That’s the beauty of a CMS driven site, once it’s set up regular people (with a little training) can add, delete and modify content to their hearts desire.
The Joomla! address is http://www.joomla.org/. What is your experience with CMS sites? I know another big one right now is Drupal but I’ve not compared them. Anyone have experience with it?
To view the database application survey results, please see http://www.arbp.org/blog/topic/?t=9. Take a look at the survey results about database applications and feel free to respond below.
What did we fail to understand about database applications? Do you have a different opinion?
To view the Linux survey results, please see http://www.arbp.org/blog/topic/?t=7. Take a look at the survey results for Linux and feel free to respond below.
What did we fail to understand about Linux? Do you have a different opinion?
More than a few people have emailed me about when are we going to release information about ARBP. The answer is soon and that’s about all I can say.
What I will say however, is that the board members have lined up a sizeable list of free and discounted software for members. No details as of yet, but we think that alone will make ARBP worthwhile to join.
More on this soon through the official ARBP website.
