Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [client-relations]

Questions regarding interactions with clients, including aspects of contract negotiation, requirements analysis, development, and maintenance.

116 questions
131
votes
14 answers

Demonstrate bad code to client?

A client has asked me to do a redesign of their website, an ASP.NET Webforms application that was developed by another consultant. It seemed like a relatively straightforward job, but after looking at the code, it's clear that's not the case. This…
jtiger
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100
votes
64 answers

What is the (craziest, stupidest, silliest) thing a client/boss asked you to do?

See title, but I am asking from a technical perspective, not Take my 40 year old virgin niece on a date or you're fired.
µBio
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98
votes
12 answers

My client wants 25% of comments in my current project, how to react?

junior developer here. I am currently working alone on a web application for a big client of my company. I started last month. The client wants at least 25% of comments in each of its software projects. I checked the code of previous applications…
Robin_
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50
votes
8 answers

Why almost no webpages hash passwords in the client before submitting (and hashing them again on the server), as to "protect" against password reuse?

There are many sites on the Internet that require login information, and the only way to protect against password reusing is the "promise" that the passwords are hashed on the server, which is not always true. So I wonder, how hard is to make a…
Martín Fixman
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48
votes
23 answers

How to get money from reluctant client?

I completed this website 4 months ago. (I would like to keep the website anonymous - if this post comes up on google search by customers, it will have a negative impact on their business). We did several iterations, the client was very demanding…
Miss Understood
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34
votes
14 answers

What if the client needs the ability to retrieve passwords?

I've currently inherited an application at work and to my dismay, I have realized that the user passwords stored in the database are encrypted using an in house encryption function, which also includes the ability to decrypt. So all someone really…
RoboShop
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33
votes
12 answers

Where to find clients?

My main area: web development. Of course, I don't expect anybody give away their 'gold mine' or whatever but I am struggling to see where I should be advertising my services. I have one other developer I work with and we have a lot of happy clients…
Damien Roche
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33
votes
7 answers

Who should pay for fixes/bugs?

So I just started freelancing both in desktop/web development and this client who already accepted my work, and payed me keeps coming back at me each time he finds a bug etc. And I have found myself spending more time than I thought fixing them for…
Agush
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32
votes
6 answers

Getting users to write decent and useful bug reports

Does anyone know a good way to get users to write a semi-decent (read: useful) bug report? We wanted to put up something that would make sense to most users (be easy to read and understand), yet give useful information to developers as well. It does…
Rook
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31
votes
18 answers

What would you do if your client required you not to use object-oriented programming?

I am writing a program to simulate the activity of ants in a grid (PDF). The ant can move around, pick up things and drop things. The problem is while the action of the ants and the positions of each ant can be tracked by class attributes easily…
lamwaiman1988
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25
votes
4 answers

Is there an analogue to "FizzBuzz" for choosing clients?

This is for the freelancers. In my past life as a full-time employee, I was involved in hiring and interviewed a good number of developers. I learned that it was much more valuable to see a developer work through a problem, however small, than to…
benzado
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24
votes
7 answers

What to do when a client has unrealistic expectations?

I've been working on a project for the past six months at a client site, since they require data confidentiality and didn't want us to work at our own office. When I showed up alone to this client site, I was told that I needed to finish the…
ajm
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21
votes
6 answers

Working with clients who don't know what they want

I have recently started a job that has me working on an existing system. It requires tweaks and updates as well as new code. I have done several maintainance/feature adding projects now, and several of them have ended up being significantly…
Michael K
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21
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5 answers

What can I do to prevent taking on an unethical development project?

Back in my self-employment days, I've once taken on a small and rather well-paid project: "A newsletter system", the spec stated. Everything was fine, invoices were paid with each milestone reached, me was a happy developer … Until Mr. Client…
vzwick
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20
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4 answers

How to tell client I no longer want to work on his project

This is probably going to sound messed up, but here it goes. I've been working on a project for a client for a while now. I wasn't given any details except for "It has to be an XYZ plugin and interface with ABC product". Which was fine, but now…
DustinDavis
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