[Coco] Expert C programmer wanted

[Roger Taylor]

At 02:43 PM 2/6/2005, you wrote:

>Not if you want a C compiler at the end of the day. Like any contract
>job, you're most likely to be successful if:
>
>1) Your project is specified down to the tiniest detail
>2) You have a technical lead/project manager (not one that's part of the
>outsourcing organization) ready to spend at least 2 or 3 hours a day
>managing the contract programmers
>3) The contract programmers are working on the platform they are used to
>working on, on the type of apps they are used to working on, with a PM
>who is used to managing programmers working on the type of app he's used
>to managing them working on.
>
>Trailblazing is not a good fit for contractors. They'll just run up a
>bill and not come back with what you want. No one comes away happy.
>Maintenance programming, and well specified database app development on
>the other hand are pretty good fits for contractors.
>
>Dimes to donuts an outsource-to-India 6809 C compiler development
>project would fail miserably because we would probably violate all 3.
>Although this is an extremely old platform, it's so old that
>trailblazing would probably be the right word ;-)
>
>Does anyone contract embedded projects to India? I would bet most of it
>happens here.
>
>Anyway Indians work cheaper but not for free. Divide $50,000 by 4 and
>you still get $12,500. Cheaper, certainly, but affordable?


We *are* still talking about a 6809 C compiler, right?  There's tons of 
them already on the web that just need to be tweaked a bit by one or more 
friendly CoCo hobbyists.  I like the idea of an open source project, if the 
project will stay active.  I'll donate what I can to the project.  I'm not 
unknowledged in compiler theory and assembler theory.  ;)

What I want to avoid is writing the compiler on my own, for my own reasons, 
but I'm not the kind of programmer who hesitates to tackle and finish a 
project just because it seems undoable.  If it weren't for projects like 
that, I wouldn't have the skills I have today.  So, if nothing else, I will 
wait a while then proceed to make a vow to write a 32-bit Windows C cross 
compiler, for free and for the CoCo community.  No $50,000 price tag, no 
$165/hour, no outsourcing, no contracts, and no "good luck" will be required.


-- 
Roger Taylor