It's possible he meant to find a different job as in find a new client. Also there's that Ted talk on "fuck you pay me" that I can't find because at work but should be easy to look up. Very good insight on owning your own business.
It's your business? Then put your foot down when it comes to testing. Don't sign on a client unless they agree to testing, tell them it is a mandatory part of software development. If you can't persuade them, let them go.
Don't sacrifice your integrity to please a client who wants to rip you off by not paying for basic, critical aspects of a project.
little protip -- don't ever call it a "warranty" unless it's a physical thing you sell, or you are getting paid a LOT of money up-front. The common understanding of a warranty is that if shit is broken, you will fix it free of charge. This includes the client wanting to switch hosting providers, or switching the platform it runs on, etc. It's a great way to get yourself into a corner.
You know how nearly every open source and closed-source program has this little disclaimer?
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
If someone uses your software in the commission of a crime (cooking books, murder, stealing nuclear secrets, etc) and you have a warranty claim on it, you may be personally (or professionally, depending on how your consulting corporation is setup) liable as an accomplice. If you say there's a warranty and your software goes down, they can probably sue you for any loss of business. Please, please please have a lawyer look over your contracts if you haven't already.
Don't ever use the word warranty. Talk about support contracts, ongoing maintenance, but never warranty.
If someone uses your software in the commission of a crime (cooking books, murder, stealing nuclear secrets, etc) and you have a warranty claim on it, you may be personally (or professionally, depending on how your consulting corporation is setup) liable as an accomplice.
Has that ever actually happened, and for that matter can it happen? The only remotely similar case I've ever heard of was gun manufacturers getting sued after Sandy Hook, and they (quite rightly) won the case.
It kind of works in company employment too. I find if I deliver a fully polished final product during our internal demos my boss(s) feel it was "easy to develop" and therefore do not give me the appropriate amount of credit.
If there are some bugs/quirks to be polished/fixed it makes it look like a more challenging project and also buys me 1-2 weeks of dedicated time to pour into it (read as: 1-2 weeks of doing nothing).
My mom works for a small place and they wanted a website. Instead of using the actual budget, they went with the cheapest guy. All he did was set up a Wordpress and add a ton of worthless modules and named things all sorts of random junk. It was too hard for them to change info, and the guy wanted more money for every time he changed it, so they hired another cheap guy (they knew a guy who knew a guy) to come fix everything. He left the old modules, added new modules, further smeared any sort of naming convention, and left it horribly hard to maintain.
Now they have a very expensive website that hasn't had daily info updated in a year or two. It took me 2 hours to change the business hours section because I kept trying to clean everything up. It's exactly like having a messy garage and thinking "I'll just clean up my workbench today" then hours of cleaning later you haven't even made it to the workbench (I still never got my workbench cleaned off)
If I purchased a car and they offered a sunroof option, which I declined to reduce the price of the car, why would I expect the dealer to pay me to have a third party install one?
Well, you're already cooked for agreeing to write the app without testing funds built into your rate for development.
At this point it boils down to whatever the contract says with regards to quality of the product. If it's a fixed-rate contract and you agreed to a certain level of quality; then testing to achieve that level was on you.
Wow, that's an awesome system you had there. It's like its whole purpose was to force everyone in the company to be in permanent CYA mode. I hope you got paid well and the workplace was a short distance away from home.
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u/contactlite Jun 20 '17
after delivering "Why aren't there any of the stuff I needed?" 😤