Add-on XenPorta 2.0 Portal & Framework Crowd-Fund!

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mistypants said:
To me one of the appeals of a rewrite is that the current XenPorta isn't very intuitive. It's simple enough to set up a recent news block and such, but things like layouts and categories aren't used by many people and I think that's just because they're confusing to implement. While I think this could be helped by writing some kind of user guide or documentation, the current system does really show that many of these features were not here on initial release and were kind of slapped on as the years went by. I can only speak for frontend stuff like this though, I'm sure that Jaxel has a far more significant reason to want to rewrite so much code.
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I was speaking more on the crowdfunding aspect of this project. A fresh rewrite that improves the intuitiveness is intriguing but hardly necessary for those who've found their way around the current XenPorta. The lack of a real feature set or even a vision for the project other than "rewriting the code" was personally concerning. Combine that with hardly any communication from Jaxel and you end up with a situation like this where people are frustrated and worried.

I'm sure XenPorta 2 will be a vast improvement and probably have some nice new features when its released but I'd hate to see people be turned off from crowdfunding again because this particular one didn't go smoothly.
 
TeflonDon said:
I was speaking more on the crowdfunding aspect of this project. A fresh rewrite that improves the intuitiveness is intriguing but hardly necessary for those who've found their way around the current XenPorta. The lack of a real feature set or even a vision for the project other than "rewriting the code" was personally concerning. Combine that with hardly any communication from Jaxel and you end up with a situation like this where people are frustrated and worried.

I'm sure XenPorta 2 will be a vast improvement and probably have some nice new features when its released but I'd hate to see people be turned off from crowdfunding again because this particular one didn't go smoothly.
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I understand but I feel that's a point that has been pretty well communicated so far... I'd rather people talk about what they're hoping for in the add-on rewrite as that's personally more interesting. The people who funded the add-on I imagine did so knowing Jaxel's typical level of communication and were okay with the lack of specifics.
 
mistypants said:
I understand but I feel that's a point that has been pretty well communicated so far... I'd rather people talk about what they're hoping for in the add-on rewrite as that's personally more interesting. The people who funded the add-on I imagine did so knowing Jaxel's typical level of communication and were okay with the lack of specifics.
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Touche. Touche. (y)
 
mistypants said:
I understand but I feel that's a point that has been pretty well communicated so far... I'd rather people talk about what they're hoping for in the add-on rewrite as that's personally more interesting. The people who funded the add-on I imagine did so knowing Jaxel's typical level of communication and were okay with the lack of specifics.
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Doesn't seem like that's the case with everyone. See below. There were quite a few other complaints on earlier pages as well.

FredC said:
Well I for one won't be participating in anymore crowdfunding on these forums.. Far to risky.
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mistypants said:
That is true, but I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for people who pay money without doing research.
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I was well aware of his history. I contributed only once the target exceeded my expectations for it. I figured with $5,000 involved from so many people that he would be pressured to actually care about communicating. I figured wrong so far.

I'm sure he isn't going to screw us over but the communication was what I was hoping would improve and it simply hasn't.
 
I personally wouldn't crowdfund anything. Rather pay for a license knowing that I already like the complete product first and that it's been debugged and tested etc.

Way too risky no matter who the programmer is. Anything can happen that leaves funders at a loss of money and no product.
 
I'm sure XenPorta 2 will be a vast improvement and probably have some nice new features when its released but I'd hate to see people be turned off from crowdfunding again because this particular one didn't go smoothly.
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Agreed.

I'm also sure that will see the beta somewhere in the Next Month...i only hope that Jaxel will keep the promises about the article system and the Widget Framework support (yes he said "maybe i will add support"...but i hope that).
 
I paid in for nothing other than the free stuff I used over the years from Jaxel and others here.
I have no expectations for this - other than hopefully it will exist. I don't use the old one, so will just look at the new one when it comes out...and if it's useful, I will use it.

Cost me about the same as the pitcher of sangria we drank at dinner tonight.

Oh, and I shudder when folks talk about programmers at $20 an hour! If a decent coder doesn't make 4X that for his time, something is wrong. Of course, many do it for free or for learning...and, yeah, that's fine to make some side money. But $20 an hour is what a Costco retail store employee is paid. Not to be down on Costco, but I think a good programmer deserves a lot more. More than 2 burger flippers, that's for sure!
 
craigiri said:
Oh, and I shudder when folks talk about programmers at $20 an hour! If a decent coder doesn't make 4X that for his time, something is wrong. Of course, many do it for free or for learning...and, yeah, that's fine to make some side money. But $20 an hour is what a Costco retail store employee is paid. Not to be down on Costco, but I think a good programmer deserves a lot more. More than 2 burger flippers, that's for sure!
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Pretty sure the national average for php developers in 2013 was about $30. According to the department of labor at least.

[Edit]

http://www.indeed.com/salary/PHP-Developer.html appears to have a wider range and slightly bigger numbers.
 
85K a year average assuming 2200 hours per year, would be $40 per hour for salaried positions.

It costs an employer at least 50% more in total than what they pay in taxes, benefits, overhead, etc. - so that's $60.

Then the employers make a big profit on the work - so the employer is effectively getting much more.

Even looking at el cheapo freelancers (these site tend to bring down values) the prices seem to average about $60.
http://www.peopleperhour.com/freelance/php+developer

Hey, if someone wants to work for $20 an hour, more power to them...
 
I mean you did pick like the highest number on the page. I'm not saying $20 is fair pay. I'm just saying 4X that like you suggested is a bit much according to the average.

It is comparable to freelance though which generally does pay more due to lack of benefits and job security and what not.
 
I fail to see the relevance of the debate about the average wage for a PHP dev. We're buying a product from Jaxel, not hiring him for a full time job. He set the price, some of us accepted it, there's nothing more to it than that.
 
petertdavis said:
I fail to see the relevance of the debate about the average wage for a PHP dev. We're buying a product from Jaxel, not hiring him for a full time job. He set the price, some of us accepted it, there's nothing more to it than that.
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We're not really debating. Just commenting on how it factors out. We could discuss the feature list, the beta version, the roadmap, or something else relating to the project instead but none of those exist.
 
craigiri said:
I paid in for nothing other than the free stuff I used over the years from Jaxel and others here.
I have no expectations for this - other than hopefully it will exist. I don't use the old one, so will just look at the new one when it comes out...and if it's useful, I will use it.

Cost me about the same as the pitcher of sangria we drank at dinner tonight.
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Not everybody can throw the money out of the window like you do it. Obviously.
 
BamaStangGuy said:
I was well aware of his history. I contributed only once the target exceeded my expectations for it. I figured with $5,000 involved from so many people that he would be pressured to actually care about communicating. I figured wrong so far.

I'm sure he isn't going to screw us over but the communication was what I was hoping would improve and it simply hasn't.
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Honestly that was really my hope as well.. As a contributor/investor i was excited about being a part of the process of building a feature list and sharing ideas with everyone etc, etc.. Seems none of that is going to happen.. Ill likely get behind other crowd fund projects but they won't ever again go to a developer with worse communication skills then i have..
 
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