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Ask HN: How often would you pay someone on a per-snippet basis?

2 points by methochris ↗ HN
I have an idea for a project that is something like a mix between StackOverflow and a job board. Like you post a request for a chunk of code in whatever language/framework to do some particular thing and say how much you are willing to pay for it. They first person to produce an answer you are happy with gets your money.

Should I make this?

5 comments

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afarrell
I don't think I would ever do this. The hard part is decomposing a business goal into the code-to-be-written and then taking that and planning the overall structure.

If I didn't have colleagues I could email, I could maybe see myself paying a retainer to be able to unblock myself with a weird quirk of a domain/toolset?

austinjp
I don't think it would be hugely useful, since each piece of code exists in a unique ecosystem. Think about libraries, dependencies, OS versions, etc. Therefore no guarantees would be possible, therefore there would be arguments over paying-up.

However... If you extended it to defined "micro-projects", perhaps that might work better. This would require some basic specs from those requesting the work. What version of X, what OS exactly, etc etc. Plus a reasonable description of what success looks like (and what failure looks like).

Not sure you could achieve that.

Classic tension: too lightweight and it won't work; but adding features/requirements until it does work will make the process too heavyweight to be appealing.

Solve that tension and you have a product. Not sure you'd make any money from it though :)

kasey_junk
Never. Code snippets have negative value. I want to remove them usually.

The job of software devs is not to create code, its to translate business solutions into software. Integrating a bunch of dissimilar code snippets is likely to make that harder.

AznHisoka
exactly. even code integrated into a codebase has negative value if you have a hard reviewing it, testing it and understanding what it does.
muzani
I have paid people to do it for me. Things like a camera, marker for Google Maps, YouTube integration into an app. Sometimes I just want someone to Google and test solutions for me, especially where it's poorly documented.

But this was great when I had less experience. As someone more senior, I can code faster than I can outsource, and reading code is harder than writing. The tech and docs have improved a lot since then. And I've had a lot of bad experiences recently which made me stop.

I would also strongly oppose "first to produce an answer". Good answers take time and rewarding speed will encourage sloppy, buggy answers, some of which ignore the requirements. It also discourages detail oriented people from starting in the first place.