Quote:
Originally Posted by BDETCINC
Thanks for your insight. This programmer has created a quite intricate site with PHP so it is apparent that it has extensive capabilities. Most of the site work most of the time, but occasionally a major function will stop working, which would be detrimental if it were being publicly used.
This was quite a bit more complicated than anticipated and I am amazed he'd hung in there, but he can't seem to get the whole thing to work smoothly. What would you recommend I do based on the fact that this complex site has been mostly built but has constant bugs and malfunctions?
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Realistically there isn't much you can do to 'manage' this. It's one of two things once you hire another coder:
1) Have someone go through it, debug it and fix it (time consuming, may do a lot more damage than it fixes)
2) Have it re-written from the ground up.
Option 1 IMO would be a nightmare scenario BUT having said that, there are some bl**dy good coders who can see straight through code, clean it up, re-write it etc and do it quickly. It really depends on how much code there is and what the database is like - that may need restructuring too.
Option 2 is quite possibly the better option but again its more development time from the ground up. That coder will also need time to debug and fix their own code (no-one writes perfect code instantly) and test its logic etc.
Which ever one you choose, you have risk I'm afraid. When I say risk, I mean in terms of time and money. What you want done is doable its just a matter of damage limitation and unfortunately both could be very expensive.
How many different php files are there for this project? Is it a large, medium or small project? - These will also affect it. If its a huge project you may well be better off going with option 1 and applying fixes as you find them. Not ideal I know but it may get you up and running faster than starting from scratch.