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Most of the local clients has small timeline for a project and there requirement may be complete and straight forward. Every project need some setup time and in freelancing you always are short of time. How to maintain balance between code quality so that any extensions from the client can be integrated and the actual timeline of the ongoing project?

Should we prioritize between the two?

Ahsan Sohail
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I don't really understand. If you don't have time to do quality work, then you don't have time to do the work.

Any "balance" comes from not taking on more projects than you can handle in a quality manner.

If you are overwhelmed with projects, it's time to raise your pricing to deter some smaller projects (or thrifty clients) while earning the same amount, or more.

Scott
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  • its not about not having time to do some project.. its the unrealistic timeline that sometime client put forward... sometime clients are more focused on features rather then quality, but it become hell for a developer to extend or change poorly written code in initial phase of the project. – Ahsan Sohail Nov 08 '18 at 14:27
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    Well, there's nothing stating you must accept an unrealistic timeline. As a freelancer I dictate the time I need, not the client. – Scott Nov 08 '18 at 14:28
  • Dictating the timeline is not really upto you sometime. Sometime clients are tougher. – Ahsan Sohail Nov 08 '18 at 16:10
  • I guess that depends upon the freelancer. I've never had a client dictate a timeline. They have requested a timeline, but ultimately I'm the only one who is capable of determining if a timeline is feasible. – Scott Nov 08 '18 at 16:51
  • then you are lucky i guess Asians clients are tougher to handle – Ahsan Sohail Nov 08 '18 at 17:07
  • @Scott I've seen clients (who aren't paying much) try to dictate time but the freelancer needs to push back (as needed) or refuse to do the job. – HenryM Aug 14 '19 at 14:00
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If you set some minimal level of the quality (and extensibility in the future) of your work, and clearly announce to the client that you never fall below this level, it will not be your disadvantage as a contractor. It will be, on the contrary, your preeminence.
Even if the client does not speak about it out loud, he will still respect the freelancer who respects himself and his work. And it's true in any part of the world.
The customer offers. But decisions are made only by you.

Ivan Olshansky
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It's not your problem if a client wants to change a project or add on new stuff in the middle of a project. They need to pay for the time. If it's much more expensive to do that during a project than by setting specifications at the start that's their problem, not yours. If your client is inexperienced you can explain this to them before taking on the project so there's no misunderstandings later.

So if someone pays me to create some code and they claim they've told me (or helped me write) 100% of the specifications, I'm not obligated to build the code so that it's easy to extend later. Now a good developer wants to make things easy to extend later but your primary job here is to meet specifications. If we know at the outset that the code needs to be easy to extend that would be one of the requirements from the start and also be a factor in pricing. Again, this is something to discuss with less experienced clients before you start so there's no misunderstandings 8 months later (or whenever).

HenryM
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