Web Dev Crew: Advice? PHP vs. ASP.NET vs... ???

Cliffs: need a web developer, not sure what type would be best suited for a content managed, community driven site, don’t really know what to look for / what to write in an ad

I don’t even know where to start, really… I have a project that I’ve been working on for a while now. I’ve already designed the front end and outlined most of how it should all function. (It’s a community site… user driven content, been done 1000x before, just not for this particular niche.)

I need user profiles, galleries, content organization/voting/commenting, pretty extensive search capabilities - pretty typical stuff, really. (In my head, none of it sounds all that complicated.)

One of the guys that I work with currently (with a REALLY extensive web programming/cms development background) said he loved the idea and that he’d hook me up with someone who could code it MONTHS ago, and he’s since just been stringing me along. (He’s actually quite busy/overloaded himself, but I’m not sure why he can’t just give me a name and email address - unless he wants to somehow be more involved. )

I just want to start searching for someone else - to actually be able to throw up some classifieds or whatever and start looking for someone who can do this job; I don’t want to wait on this mythical programmer/developer contact anymore… but, in all honesty, I don’t know what sort of developer I’m looking for because I don’t know what the standard is now (if there even is a standard). I’ve been doing only frontend/ad design for so long that I’m rather out of the dev loop now…

Also, it has the potential to be a pretty large site, with a decent amount of traffic and a LOT of rather large uploads, so it needs to scale well. (I’m not about to do something half-assed like lol built it myself on Joomla or something.)

Serious advice, pleeeeease?

php over asp hands down.

It really just depends on the money you’re willing to spend. I mean, i could throw something together in a month and charge you 500 bucks, but it might not be pretty (on the back end). If you want this done right, and in a reasonable amount of time, you’re gonna end up spending quite a bit of money.

Preference, really. You’ll find more PHP developers than .NET developers. Usually PHP developers will be more cost friendly. What type of services is your web server running? That may point you in the correct direction on which developer to utilize. Just make sure you educate yourself before you make the final decision on someone, or you’ll end up regretting it greatly.

You should research frameworks/cmf to see which one would best fit the type of project you’re doing and find a person skillful in that framework.

You can have the basics of this done in drupal in like half an hour. Another couple hours to theme it with your front end and you’re done.

Seeing as how I’m a perfectionist…

I know the cost for this sort of thing fluctuates immensely. The real problem is that I’m an individual, not a company (yet), so I have limited resources. I don’t WANT to have it done cheaply, but unless I can find a webmaster willing to form a partnership or accept some sort of variable pay plan once the site goes live, I’m going to be scraping by just to afford a developer at all. (Sadly, I don’t see a lot of people rushing out to spend their time gambling on the mere promise of potential future profits these days, regardless of how great an idea may be in theory.)

I’m a designer, not a business person - which is probably the biggest weakness I have, and the story of my life.

Ideally, I’d like to align myself with 2 partners - one with backend programming knowledge and one who is business savvy.

Currently, I’m just trying to figure out what I need to at least get things moving. This folder on my desktop full of PSDs is not going to magically turn into a functional site by itself.

I’ve actually looked at drupal a little, I have a very specific front end look though, so I’m not sure how easy it’d be to just theme something premade like that.

We have a client now who’s paying us in pieces. We’re putting together a bare bones system now. Then, once they have that system, and get together enough money, we’re going to do addons. So far, i think we have three phases planned. You could always do something like this. It’s not like a mechanic where part of your fees are having to "open up the hood" again. If you get the first version done well, generate revenue, it will (or should) cost the same amount to get it done then as it would to get all the pieces done at the same time.

Now, you might get a dick developer who doesn’t do this, but in my experience, this is the worst case scenario… that is, getting charged the same price as you would have before. Another possibility is that if you get the same developer, as before, he might charge you less because of the repeat business.

That could turn into a relatively big job I guess but Drupal has everything you mentioned and it’d scale pretty well. How much are you looking to spend?

They all seem to have relatively similar capabilities… I’m sure the site could be coded in an infinite # of ways using almost anything available, I guess I just need to know the easiest and most cost effective way to take my frontend designs, make them functional, make them scalable, etc. I would anticipate for a site that will be quite heavy with graphic and video content.

There’s a LOT of image handling involved as well…

To be perfectly honest, I’d prefer to have someone I could work with directly like a partner… Not really because I’m a control freak, but because it’s how I’m used to working on big projects…

I don’t really know what I need to spend to have it done right, so what I "want" to spend is null. It’s more a case of "tell me how expensive this will be, so I can see if I can scrape it together…" or "would you be interested in working something out where I pay you the bare minimum and offer you a big profit share after it goes live?"

Currently, I have no budget (as in, I have nothing to spend); if I had an idea of what it might cost, I could start trying to get the funds together.

As a PHP dev, I’d recommend having content management framework run your site. It already has most of what you need developed, such as user profiling, extensive search capabilities, user authentication, security, etc. You’ll need a seasoned Drupal dev to develop modules for Drupal to extend the functionality into the product you require.

Or, if you’re looking for a more customized way, I’d suggest looking into Kohana PHP 5 framework. It will automatically take care of tasks like security, session handling, and so on. But the developer will actually have to develop the user auth system, profile classes, and so on.

Just really depends on what you want to do and if you think this software is the best fit for your project.

A partnership will be difficult to find. Because developers are used to people approaching them with the "partnership mentality", and a lot of the time, they end up getting screwed over. So, most of them, if not almost all of them these days will refuse such projects just because of their experience with it. I’d first figure out exactly what you need, find developers within those skillsets, then request quotes so you can get an idea of what things will cost you.

PHP and ASP is a personal preference they really do pretty much the same things.

But you want a PHP/Drupal person. With some theming and existing modules it shouldnt take long to get the basic workings up and running. To save yourself alot of time money and frustration be sure you have a clear picture of what functions and sections you want and make sure the coder is on the same page.

IMO you shouldn’t be worried about the backend technology. Concentrate your efforts on finding the right partner. Since you have no capital, you should find somebody interested in your idea and easy to work with. Go to local technology groups in your area, socialize, get to know local talent. When you find somebody, let them worry about the technology. You’re going to waste too much time finding the right PHP guy, that you may have passed up the perfect .NET guy in the mean time, for example.

Since you aren’t coming to the table with any capital, be prepared to give up a significant amount of equity to "backend guy". An idea is only worth the cost of the napkin it was written on.

Also, I don’t think you really need a business savvy partner. Learn as you go, and don’t be so quick to give up equity. Chances are, you won’t be making enough money for it to really matter in the next couple of years anyway.

Good luck!

I really don’t doubt drupal’s capabilities to handle the basics… I keep hearing good things, and it seems most of you agree that it’d work for what I need… I know some of the modules are going to have to be done from scratch though.

Well aware… and I know the feeling too, even as a front end designer. I’ve heard a lot of promises and I’ve been screwed over a few times myself. That’s pretty much why I’ve said that if I can get an idea price-wise, I can try to scrape it together. I don’t expect to get any of this done pro bono, I just want someone I can work with extensively, who won’t charge me a fortune, and who might be interested in continuing work/maintenance/further development/etc. for the site should it become popular. Like, I don’t want to ship my designs off somewhere and have some company send me back some sort of boxed up site.

The clear picture of what I need won’t be a problem at all. The front end (and I don’t just mean the main page) is pretty much already designed, complete with comprehensive notes on what everything needs to do, how content should be handled, etc…

At least I have more than just an idea-on-a-napkin that I’m bringing to the table… I actually have a full design already made (and an extensive background in frontend design). What I need is either a partner with the skills to make it function, or a reasonable developer and an idea of what sort of funds I will need to come up with in order to afford him/her. (I’m already prepared to give up a chunk of equity either way.)

Re. local… I live in Memphis…

I actually already emailed a couple of guys (months ago) in a local drupal group, outlined my background and everything - I never got a response. (I later was able to do some more searching around *coughestalkingcough* - I managed to dig up some of the projects they’d worked on, and I wasn’t very impressed; needless to say, I wasn’t heartbroken about the lack of a response at that point.)

Again, it’s not a site "idea," I have… it’s a fully designed site, it’s just still in psd format. It needs to be cut up and made functional/have a backend developed around it - or at least have a backend customized based on it.

….and, as for making money and whether or not it’ll matter in a few years, I’m actually pretty confident that the site has the potential for some incredible ad revenue. I say this not because I like my idea, but because I actually work in advertising, and not only do I fit the target demographic for the site I’ve designed, I also design for a very, VERY similar one on a daily basis.

Really and truly, I started this thread in hopes that it would help me in my research- i.e. what I need to look for, what I should expect (including basic costs / what would be the most cost effective), etc…

I was going to write up an ad, looking for a developer… and I found myself sitting here saying "I’m really not sure what it should say…"

I’ve always just relied on social and business connections, sadly I don’t know any developers currently with the time to handle a project like this and my one solid work connection has failed me. (Rather, he’s been saying "I’m going to hook you up with a developer this week, I promise," just about every week for the past month and a half… and is otherwise too busy to even respond to me half of the time - unless it pertains to work (and even then he’s still too busy sometimes). It’s frustrating, because I know he actually IS really busy, so I hate to ask… but, geeze, it’s just a referral, idk why it’s such a huge deal.

a good business plan will help you tremendously. shows how serious you are to investors/partners.

Sounds like a great idea, but (again) business is not my forte. I wouldn’t even really know where to go with it if I already had a business plan. Clearly, I don’t want to risk the losing idea itself either. (As of right now, and to the best of my knowledge, there’s no competition for what I want to do.)

Additionally, I don’t even know what it will cost to get it off the ground yet. If it’s something I can manage to afford on my own, I’d rather not involve investors. In fact, I’d rather not have investors at all really.

This whole project is something that could pretty easily be executed (at least initially) by two people - a designer and a developer. I’m not adverse to just paying a developer, though I would prefer to find someone with the desire to be slightly more invested in the project than a run of the mill coder-for-hire. However, I’m not really sure how one finds that sort of person, short of just knowing one.

I guess I really just need to get an NDA written up for the purpose of getting quotes at this point though, huh?

Still, the overall point of this thread was (primarily) to see what type of developer I should seek out for a project such as this… If I write an ad regarding seeking a developer, I want to know what sort of qualifications I should look for and such.

An idea of what I should expect vs. how much money I’m going to need/what kind of offer I have to make to actually get started would be fantastic, but it seems that’s pretty hard to get without my going into explicit details about the site.

So how does one get involved with the project if you don’t want to risk them running away with the idea lol

I guess if I found someone with a decent portfolio/references/etc., I’d shoot over an NDA and go from there. I have the background/resume/references/etc. to back up my design abilities, site/community management abilities, etc., so I would expect similar from anyone capable of handling a project like this.

Going to go get dinner, will check back in a bit.

It depends on what you are writing. If we are writing Bank software or anything huge, I would go with asp, c#, etc with the .NET framework.. If you are writing a low security website or something like facebook, I would go php.

Also different languages scale differently too, so it really depends on what type of site you are going to be making.

Traffic/bandwidth-wise, I’d think we’d be about on par with a site like chictopia.com () after the first year… (The site I’ve designed isn’t like chictopia, nor will it be in competition with them, btw… I’m just using their alexa data for comparison.)

Soooo, relatively large, but nothing like facebook-large. Security is pretty low on my list of concerns. I mean, there needs to be some security, yes; nothing like a bank would need though.

I don’t know what language Chictopia is, but it’s slow as fuck and has terrible navigation too… Ugh.

I just figure the market/niche I’m targeting is probably about the same size audience, roughly… maybe even bigger, to be honest. So I would expect about the same size userbase/same amount of content (with the addition of videos) after it’s been live a while and after a decent amount of advertising.

There’s always the chance that it could take off and be omghuge.

Or, we could not build it properly, people could have problems with the site, etc., and it could fail.

I really want it to be solid enough where, with proper marketing, it has the potential to be a high traffic site without any glitches or usability issues that would cause it to lose members… The last thing I want is to have this great idea, solid design, etc., and then let a horrible backend be the downfall… which is another HUGE reason that I don’t want to just sent off my design and have some company whip up a boxed-up version of a functional site… I really want to find someone that will take a genuine interest in it and actually care about making the site function as flawlessly as possible for the sake of obtaining and retaining users.

You’ll need a business plan when you hire someone to build it.

You can’t just say "here, build something like _____". It’s too vague. You won’t end up getting what you want.

If you want people to take your project seriously you need to list a whole bunch of different things in a document:

1) Description of Project
2) Goals of Project
3) Audience/Demographics
4) Required features
5) Monetization
6) Costs

It’ll also help you get a clear idea of where you are heading.

Well, first of all, this thread was to help me get a clear idea of what I need in terms of a developer… 1-5 I can outline no problem, accompanied by full site designs… 6 is something I’m researching… and I’m not sure where desired backend language falls on that list, but that’s my big roadblock: in what language should it be developed and how much is it going to cost me?

So, my questions remain:

1. What language (and possibly existing framework, i.e. drupal?) should be used for a large scale community site with a lot of graphic/video content including a good deal of image handling (on the fly cropping, resizing, thumbnailing, etc. of just about everything)? Things to consider are ease/cost of development, speed, scalability…

2. How much is it all going to cost?

Again, there’s no "I need it to be like…." involved. I’ve already designed the site. I’ve already incorporated notes regarding functionality into those designs. I have a full blown mockup, complete with filler content. I have PSD files for nearly every page incorporated in the site - not just a main page design. I have a lot of experience working with developers as far as providing all the graphic assets and defining how things should work… I just don’t know what sort of developer I need for this project specifically - nor have I ever been the one doing the actual hiring.

I really don’t mean to start fishing for a developer here, more than anything I want to get an idea of what the best (and most cost efficient) route would be as far as getting it programmed is concerned… and what sort of cost I’ll be looking at.

Ideally I want to hire someone that I can work with back and forth, and that I can later bring on board as a permanent webmaster for the site.

I’m repeating myself here, but… Let’s just pretend I already have financial backing… I need to know, if I post an ad somewhere looking for a developer,

a.) what type of developer I need to look for (incl. proficiencies in the as-of-yet-undetermined preferred language); and

b.) what a reasonable estimate might even look like.

Here, let me simplify it…

If I wanted someone to make a chictopia.com clone* with a completely revamped design, what would it cost me and what would be the most effective language in which to have it coded?

(*Note: I do not want to make a clone of chictopia.com, I’m using it as an example because of the amount of traffic it has and the fact that it’s a community driven site with a large portion of content being made up of images.)

You’re learning a lot lately.

Cost will be relative to the developer, as some will be lesser/more expensive, and may utilize different methods that will make it lesser/more expensive. But I’ll do my best to analyze the project myself and give an estimate based off it.

Choice of CMS would be: Drupal. I’d utilize modules such as for chic points, core Forum Module (or if needed for discussion aspects), for the shopping cart, for the photo/style galleries, and I’d probably have to write a small custom module and use User Points API to link up to UberCart for the rewards. The commenting, user auth, on other general sitewide aspects is already handled by the CMS taking care of about 60% of the work. The majority of the work would be configuring the CMS and modules to get the site running and configured as necessary, as well as creating the theme.

That being said, I’m running an estimate of a minimum of $3,000 to a max of $5,000, since most of the code is already written for me. For a site like this, you can expect to spend something around $10,000 (just for development) if you want someone to develop this from scratch. Assuming the developer is competent, and in result, will charge as such.

As a side note, looks like chictopia.com was developed using Drupal anyway, so they likely used an approach similar to mine. Also note, the estimate did not cover design. And one more additional note, that would be my going rate (which will differ from other devs).

I hope that helped a bit.

Good post. I probably would have overestimated it if I were giving a quote (because I have little experience with Drupal).

In terms of cost, it’ll depend on the features.

If you’ve already designed the site, I have a feeling that it might be cheaper. (I’m guessing you just need someone to slice and code it then?)

I know a young PHP/java/etc developer from scotland who’s been looking for work. He seems quite competent, and eager to work on something.

And yeah, for your social networking site i’d probably go with PHP.

Thanks….I’ve definitely been trying to improve my business sense.

Exactly the answer I was looking for, thank you! It’s nice to have a ballpark idea of what it might cost. I’m fine with going with a CMS like drupal as long as it looks and functions the way I have it designed.

That’s interesting to know about chictopia… I actually hate their design, like HATE their design… and their site isn’t exactly the fastest either. I assume, since you’re still recommending drupal, that the speed of their site doesn’t have anything to do with that?

Yeah, I don’t think my design even has as many features as chictopia does at this point… As for slicing, I was contemplating just having a company (like htmlburger.com) slice it and make me a tableless design. I could do it, but I’d really rather not… the company I works for sends stuff to them from time to time and they always seem to do a pretty decent job.

My biggest concern is the backend/features.

Any more details on your Scottish friend?

You shouldn’t have any problems with the design, unless the design isn’t very compatible with web in the first place. Have you moderate experience in web? Modern CMS’s have created their CMS using design patterns that allow designers to design, and developers to develop. As long as it falls within the "rules" of the web, you can theme anything in Drupal. It has a very complex, yet, easy to use theme layer of their software that makes it all possible.

A number of things can attribute to the speed of a site. Server speed, user activity, optimization of the software/apache, etc. Being a "drupal guy", I will be the first to say that Drupal has a ton of overhead, much more than most other CMS’s and frameworks. This is due to the amount of system callbacks that occurs when a user visits the site. However, under the right conditions, Drupal will perform like a charm.

have you just tried using build your own social network for any niche you want and pretty customizable.

never ever choose ASP if you can choose something else.

btw:

No. No, no, no. Yes, I’ve seen the oatmeal, kthnx.

I have more than moderate experience… That’s why I’m so worried about this project… I want to find someone who REALLY knows what they’re doing with whom I can work back and forth.