[Product-Developers] Re: How can we win the battle for developers?

[Roberto Allende]

Hedley Roos wrote:
> 
>> A serious problem we have in our company, menttes work just with 
>> Plone, is how expensive is to add/train new developers. Is very hard 
>> to find python or zope developers out there. So, we've to train every 
>> new person in all the stack, and this is a big investment for a small 
>> company.
>>
> 
> I think 6 months is par for training an existing developer to be a good 
> Plone developer. I have been pleasantly surprised though by a friend who 
> needed only 3/4 months before he could deliver good products.
> 
> But... it is a bit long. Plone 3 worsens the curve (sorry, I know we 
> have component architecture and it is more correct, but it is true.)
> 
> At Upfront we're all subcontractors. We all had to get up to speed 
> mostly by ourselves and show that we can deliver. That means the risk 
> run by Upfront is smaller. The flipside is that this model only works 
> for people fresh out of college, or people in mid-career wanting to 
> change careers. And they need the right personality for Plone :)
> 
> I honestly think the only way to "win" is to make Plone easier to 
> customize. I don't think marketing will help much, although I did notice 

You are right, marketing and promotion won't solve the learning curve 
issues.

I'm just saying that marketing and promotion probably let us work with 
new people and with some luck reach other people than people fresh out 
of college or people in mid-career. I believe that if we do enough 
promotion, there are more chance to find people with python/zope 
knowledge and you also could get more companies investing in Plone 
development, i would like to see a comparison between companies in 
plone.net vs contributors.

With more contributors, i would expect to have more improvements in the 
same time, more improvements could make the technology more friendly 
faster, for example and if that's the case.

Many implications and more of them are based on intuitive ideas, sorry 
i've no proofs for any of them, just a feeling.  You can believe or not 
and the discussions will be always interesting for me :D

> Limi on some panel of 10 which made Slashdot's front page. I'm sure he 
> spreads the word.

Same happens with most of the people on this mailing list, i'm sure 
they're working hard to make plone easier and the great thing in a free 
software is you can join them.

Kind Regards
r.

-- 
http://robertoallende.com