I have postponed the attempt to code it myself . Lack of time and lack of enthusiasm. I have learnt SQL, which gives me better insight into functionality, and I have confirmed that I am more designer than coder.
Since the Scriptlance hires had not worked out, I started looking for local programmers. I found a guy on Gumtree who charged £25 per hour. A reasonable rate for London. I met up with him. My target budget was £1-£2,000 to build complete application (Version 4). He estimated 6-8 weeks work which blew my budget.
Since local programmers are too expensive, I re-examined why the Scriptlance contracts were not working out and made some changes. The first change was to make each Scriptlance project smaller. Development is now feature by fetaure, not version by version. This makes it easier for programmers to quote for each job, it makes each job more manageable, it means I need spend less time talking through the functionality and it means that I do not have to expose the whole design at the bidding stage. The second change was to include a flow diagram in the design documents (in addition to the commented HTML templates). This should also reduce the time I spend talking through functionality. These changes were substantial. To celebrate I have assigned the current version, Version 5.
The first job I posted on Scriptlance was to build the core. The core is Version 4 stripped of as many features as possible.
I paid an extra $19 to get my project ‘featured’. I did not provide a guide budget. I provided my private email address. This proved useful insofar as developers were still able (and did) contact me after the bidding closed.
My project had 15 days to run but the interest started to plateau after 24hrs and so, 48hrs after the project was posted I selected a bid. The bids ranged from from $100 in 5 days to $600 in 8 days. The locations included Canada, UK, India, China, America, Pakistan, Thailand and others. I shortlisted 3 from a possible 20 developers (including 10 bids). I discounted programmers who replied with stock answers, bidded too high, did not appear to be truly interested or had dodgy reviews.
From my shortlist, I selected a $300 bid by a UK developer. UK was a big selling point because of increased accountability (subject to same laws) and easier communication (face to face if needed).
Some guys suggested using development frameworks such as Zend or CakePHP. Initially I was concerned that this would limit future hires by adopted framework. Latterly, I realised that a framework would help homogenise coding standards throughout the application and provide a ready structure for modular development.
Finally, this month, my laptop broke and I got swamped at work. Now, I have got a new laptop and some leave so we should see some progress in September.