Starting a goal setting website

[tetch]

I have had difficulty breaking into programming as a job based career, so I'm getting back into coding my own projects. In the interest of keeping this short, basically my project has been languishing because I'm realizing that for what I have in mind I just can't do everything. So I have a few questions for everyone.

1. What is the best way to structure my project to facilitate outsourcing certain aspects? I'm thinking I need to pull out my Sys Analysis & Design book and start unitizing modules of code, but I don't have any experience putting pieces together.

2. How can I ensure that my project develops in a scalable way? Basically my database will be MySQL based & I want to make sure it's designed to grow and also be easily ported to another server as my limited web host service becomes obsolete (hopefully).

3. What is a good way to determine a fair cost associated with projects? I work at a law firm, so I know this can be a difficult one to nail down. But supporting a family & not really being in a solid career, I don't really have lots of money to toss around. Just don't know if by contract is most common or if by hour/line of code is the normal deal.

Thanks for your time. -- John

[gnomeontherun]

Moved to a more appropriate forum

1. This depends greatly on the project, the platform, and the coders. Often an easy way to allow for collaboration is SVN.

2. You can only ensure this with quality programmers and with a PLAN. It is most important to plan for growth, not to assume its designed to accept it. For example, if you are 90% sure you will be needing feature XYZ, then plan that into your database structure.

3. It goes both ways for me as a freelancer. I do some by the hour and some by the project. Generally if I control the whole aspect of the programming myself I do it by the project, if I am working with others or collaborating I do it by the hour. It depends on how the project is structured though.