Doing some work at RentACoder
April 21st, 2007 at 11:16 amI’m a firm believer in maintaining my programming and engineering skills sharp. Unfortunately, even if the environment at day work is stimulating, sometimes there are periods when you don’t really do anything interesting from a technical point of view. In other words, you don’t learn anything new. So, to “keep in shape” I need a constant influx of learning material. And there is no better way to learn than to actually do.
Once when I was young and full of motivation, I was inventing new problems for myself to solve, and in solving them I gradually increased my programming skill. These days, such motivations are more difficult to find. Luckily, I’m not the only one with the desire to learn, so people have been making up all kinds of problems to solve in a “group environment”. Discussing the solutions with other people motivates you to actually do the work. Some examples: Code Katas, Ruby Quiz, Perl Quiz, solving problems from ACM’s programming competition, and so on and on.
However, being the ever practical engineer that I am, I find even these approaches not especially motivating, mainly because they are synthetic. These are not real problems people need solved, but rather artificial problems made up solely for the purpose of exercise. Not that this is a bad thing, but I just find it hard to get motivated by these things for a long period of time. So how do you find real problems to exercise on ?
Enter RentACoder. Shortly, it is a marketplace of programmers. “Buyers” arrive with problems they need solved, “sellers” are programmers who have the skills to do the work. This is outsourcing taking to the extreme. A localized example of laissez faire capitalism.
How popular is this thing ? Very. At the moment there are 74,000 registered buyers and 175,000 registered sellers on the site. There are almost 2,500 open bid requests (jobs need to be done) and new ones are popping at a rate of a hundred a day. Buyers range from students needing solutions to homework, to companies hiring serious programmers for prolonged periods on contracts worth thousands of dollars. Sellers range from programmers yearning for some experience and skill sharpening to complete outsourcing firms in Russia or India that make their living through the website. After a job is completed, the buyer rates the seller and vice versa, thus creating a full ranking and reputation system that makes the consistent, fair buyers and skilled, serious sellers stand out.
I registered last week and have already completed two small projects. Unfortunately, both seem to be homework (one text processing in Perl, another a simple parser in Lisp), but you must start with something to get rated and have at least some portfolio. I made very low bids on purpose to win the requests - you can be either very good or dirt cheap, and since I’m still not rated there’s no other way but price to assess my bid. In total I made a whopping $18 from the two projects - ice cream money. Do I feel bad for the poor Pakistani whom I outbidded, and that could pay a week’s rent from these $18 ? No. The buyer wanted a job done. I proposed the lowest sum. Not very different from the US dad who was fired from his data entry job that can be done at 1/10th the price by this same Pakistani’s uncle. This is capitalism, deal with it.
I surely don’t plan to make any serious money from RentACoder. At best, I will earn enough in a few months to buy a couple of books on Amazon. But I do feel that RentACoder gives me far stronger motivation to actually do the work than any artificial “Quiz”. It is fun to solve a real problem, to be on schedule, to have some money and reputation on the line. Somewhat like gambling - you don’t do it for the money, you do it for fun. But what makes it fun is the money.
What I do expect is for RentACoder to be a skill sharpener. Once I gain some reputation and good ratings by completing small and cheap assignments, I will have a far better chance to win the really interesting bid requests, ones that involve learning new things.
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April 21st, 2007 at 5:56 pm
I’m curious how doing someone’s homework for them is “solving real problems”.
April 21st, 2007 at 6:01 pm
As I mentioned, this is just a temporary way to get the rating and reputation needed to advance. It’s not my goal to do people’s homework, because it’s not solving real problems, and most often it’s less interesting than real problems.
You have to start with something. You can’t expect a firm having a work that needs to be done for real to hire a coder with no rating and reputation. I wouldn’t. But a coder that completed at least a couple of homework assignments satisfactorily already looks better.
April 21st, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I agree with your view on how capitalism works. RentACoder was not started for the betterment of third world programmers yearning to put bread on the table. Rest assured, no Pakistanis were hurt when you finished two homework assignments to perfection! Possibly two “first world” kids were denied the opportunity to think for themselves (if that was indeed the case). You might draw in market forces to your rescue here. If not you, somebody else would have done that homework for them.
If not me someone else might have hunted that bear…
If not me someone else might have stolen that Oil…
There is an honor code every student going to a university in the US is expected to adhere to and that is not to ask or provide unauthorized assistance. The students definitely sold their honor in Renting-A-Coder. Was the coder an accomplice? I am totally OK with “So what?” / “Screw them, I’ll be making the big bucks as soon as the ratings go up.”
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:18 am
I really wonder how you can think that doing qualified things dirt cheap makes you a better coder. It definitely doesn’t make you a better business man, and it’s business we’re in, nothing else. In the worst case, you’re lowering the price for good work, not only hurting yourself, but others, too.
Why not try something else for a challenge? Start or join an open source project to build a reputation? Build up a company, advertise and solve the problems of the people around you? Help a non-profit organization to organize their IT for the common good? Get into academia and do some research?
It’s not the breadth of your skills that make you a good coder, it’s the depth of your expertise. There’s always a way to do things better, even in a day-to-day job, and that’s the way to perfection. By suggesting that the motivation for improvement is hard to find you indicate that you may have reached a dead end. Try to overcome this by aspiring for the next level; it may be more rewarding than doing other’s work for next to nothing.
April 22nd, 2007 at 2:23 am
I have 865 projects, completed via RentACoder.
Programmers from expensive areas always ready to explain why they can’t compete with me.
I have 93 projects completed via GetAFreelancer and 32 projects, completed via Scriptlance.
April 24th, 2007 at 9:40 am
you may be interested in my experience with rentacoder
I posted some comments at http://kamen123.blogspot.com
I have obvious evidences that rentacoder staff can not provide consistent arbitration if project is significantly bigger than several hundreds. Because their mental abilities do not allow them to deal properly. For such projects rentacoder becomes trap full with endless stupidity. This is in contradiction with the slogan of rentacoder and the text on the site.
I believe that everyone benefits from a fair marketplace
It is fair to warn buyers and coders about rentacoder
Probably now Sergey Grachyov will start barking against me to defend rentacoder, I’ll tell him in advance that every wise man will confirm that I’m right. Only people like him may like rentapatcher
April 30th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Famous insulter “kamen123” has been banned from RentACoder.
Story of his personal failure:
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/ArbitrationInfo/KamenKaburov/RentACoderArbitration/KamenKaburov_RentACoder_Arbitration.htm
“kamen123” spoil perfect site in revenge.
June 4th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Very funny again Sergey Grachyov is wasting time barking to defend the dummies in rac staff
It’s wiser if you go out and find good job
Please do not help rac staff to lie
Sergey your behaviour is transparent here, everyone can confirm that I’m right