Let's create a foundation for competition among BTS developers

[cube]

I think with a good pay, it is possible to attract good experienced developers to perform this documentation task. FYI, our community have capable people (eg xeroc, pc and roadscape) who can do the job if they are available and like to take up the role. They can form a documentation team or become part of it.  Having quality documentation for bts as it is now is not an easy task.  It would require the team to go deep into the codes in order to map out the logics.  To ease the work, they would need to consult CNX from time to time as Thom suggested.

[EstefanTT]

If the de dev needs to learn before beeing efficient, I think is better to find a motivated person accepting at first a low payrate. Probably in a country were life is cheap.
Once that dev have achieved his first contract, we can re-hire him with a better payrate because he will be more efficient. That way, we don't pay too much for his "formation" and we also keep him motivated for further jobs.


for your proactivity Jakub, well done !

[yvv]

Your crowd is very funny guys, but your business suffers from one fundamental problem: you are all completely detached from reality. You think that buying slaves from Latvia for $900 will solve your problems? You are wrong. Think again. It will work for a while. But then your slaves will refuse to work for you until you give them all benefits which golden billion in EU and US has. And your government will fuck you hard to not allow this. What are you going to do then? Find more slaves in Africa? It is not going to work.

[Empirical1.2]

Marvellous idea jakub. Perhaps kencode can find a Latvian developer with the requisite skills in addition to very good English?

  Great idea

[Ben Mason]

Marvellous idea jakub. Perhaps kencode can find a Latvian developer with the requisite skills in addition to very good English?

[Thom]

I can get expert coders out of Latvia for $900 month who will work on average 10-12 hour per day (because they WANT to) and will produce typically DOUBLE what any of my American coders ever could. Also, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine are about the same rates. I still have an expert python/C++ guy in India too but his rate is close to American salaries these days, India just isn't as competitive anymore.

Think outside the borders. You guys want to get out of this mess? Talk to me.

@kenCode
The thing is, do "expert coders out of Latvia for $900" speak (and write) fluent English so that they can communicate with CNX and produce comprehensive documentation?

Awesome thread Jakub, I hope to see your efforts succeed.

@kenCode, I am not sure it's practical to achieve the goals Jakub outlined here by someone that doesn't reside in Blackburg VA. It takes a lot of very short convos to distill the info required to become proficient in a system as complex as the BitShares backend.

Not saying it can't be done, but it will be much harder to do without being in VA. It also requires CNX's willingness to carve a portion of the dev's time out for consulting. Also, if the dev is goes away after the contract, as opposed to getting hired by CNX / BCL permanently, a good portion of the investment goes away with them (besides the docs and examples).

You can't expect the contractor to do well in the "ask him anything" role until well into and possibly near the end of the contract period. Makes me wonder if the worker proposal needs to have a phase 1 and 2 for docs vs. api helpdesk.

[jakub]

For me (speaking as a shareholder) having such a person at our disposal (plus all the results of his/her educational work) is worth spending at least 3M - 4M BTS (for 3 months).

[jakub]

I can get expert coders out of Latvia for $900 month who will work on average 10-12 hour per day (because they WANT to) and will produce typically DOUBLE what any of my American coders ever could. Also, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine are about the same rates. I still have an expert python/C++ guy in India too but his rate is close to American salaries these days, India just isn't as competitive anymore.

Think outside the borders. You guys want to get out of this mess? Talk to me.

@kenCode
The thing is, do "expert coders out of Latvia for $900" speak (and write) fluent English so that they can communicate with CNX and produce comprehensive documentation?

[jakub]

Listen, I never said CNX should disappear from bts.  I just don't want them to be the dominant player in both bts knowledge and bts stake.  That is centralization.

Why don't we fund a worker proposal for employing for 2-3 months a C++ developer with these goals:
- thoroughly learn Graphene and its API,
- document it by expanding the existing documentation,
- create friendly tutorials for C++ developers wanting to work with Graphene,
- create working examples of "hello world" smart contracts and operations,
- launch a test network,
- and for the next 2-3 months afterwards play the role of an "ask me anything" expert at our full disposal

Required skills:
- solid expertise in C++
- proficiency in spoken and written English

Preferred experience:
- familiarity with the blockchain concept and/or BitShares
- already worked as a CNX contractor

The main goal of this position would be to "get under the hood and completely map out all the terrain" for all future developers.

Basic info we need to establish:
1. How big is the Graphene source code? (in terms of lines of code) How much time do you expect an experienced C++ developer (not familiar with the blockchain concept) would require to become productive with Graphene?
2. The current status of the Graphene documentation/tutorials and CNX plans in this regard for the next 1-3 months.
3. To what extent is the documentation embedded in the source code useful? Are there any examples there?
4. If I hire a C++ developer and give them the task of becoming a fully-fledged Graphene developer able to create smart contracts and deploy them - where should s/he start? What is the path s/he should follow to learn these skills?
5. What subjects will the documentation by xeroc cover as opposed to the documentation aimed at developers?

This is what we already know:

C++ Dev, 80k-ish / year full time salary?
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Skill=C%2b%2b/Salary#by_Years_Experience