Think about Master Chef and Hell's Kitchen. Who would really want to see people cook something that they won't be able to taste? Viewers need to rely on the judges' opinions about the food and that's it. And yet a lot of people watch those shows, not only for the food, but for the 'process' involved in cooking. It's really the drama and emotions involved in the episodes that people crave and keep those shows alive.
How about America's Next Top Model? Or The Apprentice? Most viewers of these shows are neither models nor managers. Perhaps when coding has become as ubiquitous as cooking, business, or fashion (which will happen most likely), coding as a spectator sport will make more sense.
So maybe we only use it for long-distance power and communications? I'm reminded of the Utopia story where, having no need of currency, they used gold for plumbing, because of its corrosion resistance.
There is a pending UNCLOS case filed against China not only over the Spratly's, but on China's "nine-dash line" claim. China refuses to participate in the arbitration, despite ratifying UNCLOS.
SUPPORT:
There is no supported capability to do that with any "COMPANY_NAME" product, thanks.
CUSTOMER:
FYI, in 2015, that’s absolutely TERRIBLE. None of the other premium providers game me a STRAIGHT NO.
1. Sometimes, when support made the wrong initial contact, all future correspondence will turn sour. Make the first impression count.
2. Having 'thanks' at the end of sentences seems casual/unprofessional to me, if not rude. Maybe something like "thank you for your message" as an opening line on that email might be better.
3. At least you should have offered alternatives, rather than leaving the customer empty-handed. If there are none, at least you could have said that "we are looking at/thinking about/working on/still gathering feedback from more customers/ to implement this feature in the near future. as soon as it's ready, we'll let you know."
4. I think most of your replies are too long. On the other hand, your initial reply almost looked like canned response.
5. Never vent out to your customers as support. You will never win. You have the final say on what features you will put to your products, but your customer has every right to express how they feel about your product/service. You have none. Don't take it personally.
Hey, thank you for the feedback, I'm the author of this thread but I'm actually the customer, not the support rep.
I get behind every single point of your list. I felt like he just didn't care, and when I proceeded to point out I was disappointed and thought it was terrible of them to just slam the door in my face like that, I received an endless series of condescending remarks which made even angrier and caused my reactions.
I'm somewhat surprised by some of the answers in the thread but I did want other people's opinions in order to figure out where the real balance is.
I guess I still feel like I'm the one who's right, especially being the paying customer, but from everyone's feedback I should have kept the tone down.
I admit I really don't work well with condescension.
Oh I see, I wrote thinking you are on the support side.
I think you as a customer acted rationally and with honesty. Most customers, when hearing such an initial reply, do not bother responding at all (probably gone forever as a customer). And the worse thing is, support/devs think that, with no further response from the customer, they are doing a great job.
I myself am a customer-dev to at least two websites (been working with them for the last 5+ years). These sites have made at least a large share on their niche market, but their support is terrible. Business-wise, they think they can afford to lose a customer, so their 'default' support mode is to brush customers off (or leave support requests hanging). I believe many businesses are like this.
About the condescension, many devs are like that, treating support as 'inferior' to development and not equally important (cost center vs profit center mentality). When in fact, it's a profit opportunity. The customer's requirements are very specific, and from the correspondence, I can see that the customer understands that not all customers would request for such a feature, and probably would be willing to pay a premium for a custom-made solution. Most people here are devs, so they sympathize more with the support side (personally, I work on both domains).
Thanks for this post. I myself have a small app that I am thinking whether to publish as GPL or other licenses (MIT or Apache). But I am worried about some shady users who would rather distribute the binaries without the source.
I would react the same. At least, before other users change my own code or even profit from it, they should try to contact me. But MIT license does not oblige users to disclose the source. Nothing against MIT license, but it's somehow not a good fit for stuff that don't require the full source in order to run.
Why not release a new version, and publish it as GPL? That would be clearly a violation if they accept bids on Elance like that. Or try dual licensing.
>If you release under GPL, are you prepared to hire lawyers to enforce the license terms?
It would be good if one can hire lawyers, but to be honest, most developers working on side projects are not (at least in my honest opinion).
>It's ok if someone isn't, but in that case, why bother?
At least there is some sort of protection, and at least to scare away those who cannot afford the risk of being sued. Who knows, a lowly developer now might be able to turn things around and finally afford lawyers at his whim. Or even gain some backers.
Interestingly that page doesn't include the WTFPL [0]
As that licence doesn't include a "no-warranty" statement, and copyright is automatic in most countries (from your link), there must be a fair few open source repos on Github etc that could be liable for damages arising from the use of open source code (or at least fall into a nice grey area I'd personally rather avoid).
That is simply not the case; only perhaps the ones listed on that page. People sometimes release code without properly licensing it. For instance I have seen code accompanied by a statement like "this code is in the public domain; anyone can do anything they wish" (without any disclaimers of liability).
Would be good if it were to use more environmentally-friendly materials. The piezoelectric material as described in the article is molybdenum disulfide. This could be a huge disadvantage, since molybdenum is not so abundant in nature (scarcer than lithium). There are already concerns regarding the use of lithium, and whether its availability would be able to sustain global production (rechargeable batteries, mainly) in the next hundred years or so.
I gained a huge interest on piezoelectric materials upon learning of solar piezoelectric thermoacoustic generators. Not really as efficient as solar panels, but could be far cheaper and more environmentally-friendly.
Thank you for your courage in making this post. I am from the Philippines too. Like you, I did not finish college. Yeah, it's really hard in this country to get a corporate programmer job if you don't have that piece of paper.
I am solely a freelancer for about 4 years now (not full time though, as I don't get to work 8 hours a day). I get mixed results with my career as a freelancer (oDesk, Elance, etc.). Sometimes the monthly income is so high I can take a vacation for three months. Sometimes, it's very low or nothing at all. At times I had to borrow from my girlfriend or some friends just to keep things going. Here are some things that I have learned in my journey:
1. Make sure that you have winter savings, or it would be hard to raise your rate even if you are qualified to do so. Before I resigned from my BPO job, I made sure to have some savings before working freelance full-time. Unfortunately, TY Ketsana hit, and my house went underwater. I lost my initial savings, but still I was able to thrive with some projects.
2. Start with small projects first. Your priority at this time is feedback. When starting out, my mistake was that I aimed at larger projects first. In the eyes of most clients, size does not really matter. Your ability to accept and finish work with good results is more important.
3. Personalize your cover letter, but keep it short. In my experience, clients don't like reading lengthy messages. But they take effort in writing jobs descriptions. Every freelancer should respect that.
4. Higher-paying clients are generally easier to work with.
5. As much as possible, charge a fixed-rate for projects. Clients can limit their risks while you can save yourself from time trackers. If it's going to be a job for at least six months, it's usually OK. If not, it's often wiser to give a fixed price. I have seen some bids where their hourly bid is equal to the fixed-price, and get accepted.
About your employment, I think you can sue your employer for lowering your rate (if it's at least an established business entity). That's against the law.
