Real programmers use the turtle:
http://sydlexia.com/imagesandstuff/logo/start.png

I wouldn't hire a six figure guy to maintain a NATS installation either, LOL...

The reason why you don't see too many six figure PHP devs in the adult industry is because nobody is doing anything to warrant it... This industry lacks innovation and, in my opinion, is way behind the game. The vast majority of sponsor sites are still nothing more than glorified galleries, almost no one captures user info unless it's a paid signup, A/B testing is practically unheard of, and the amount of sites not built on some prepackaged solution is very slim...

Edit: And further more on that last part... Do people not realize in the adult industry that if you use a prepackaged solution that isn't open source your offerings and functionality are limited only to what (and at what speed) your third party solution is capable of providing? And that you can never offer more (or different functionality) than your competition? Do people just play this game to make enough money to get by? Cause where I come from, we play to win...

Third party solutions are for startups, to minimize costs... once you get to a certain point you should be looking at developing custom software if you plan on taking on some market share rather than just sharing in the market...

I'm a horrible programmer and not afraid to admit it. Doesn't stop me from writing all my own stuff though.

If you're talking about a full-time employee, $100K comes to approx. $48/hour. A LOT of PHP programmers charge more than that. Of course, some will lower their rate for the security and benefits of a salaried position, but it's not uncommon as you think to find guys who ONLY do PHP/MySQL all day long getting 6 figure salaries. Adult is cheap, mainstream and gaming industries pay extremely well.

I wouldn't hire a NATS guy to maintain anything for $100k a year either :)

That's the thing - you are a business man that is also a programmer. Your "job" and mine at that, is to innovate, be different or unique - to be a resource of knowledge based on a range of skills. Not to sit and code, in php all day...

I actually code with my development system set to that... I've got to say though, that after having worked on and fixed some of the most popular scripts available, I have to say the vast majority of programmers in this biz are hacks.. And that includes some that everyone on here have said are top notch programmers.. LOL... One of the most popular scripts is so full of bugs and security holes it just makes me laugh. Not saying my stuff is perfect, no code is.. But by comparison.. sheesh.. it just shocks me.

Our programmers are baddass.

Funny when they come by my desk and go "What's GFY"

We've had/created our own affiliate software that produced 100's of sales daily and I've used mpa and nats for years as well. It sure wasn't a perfect world making our own... we went down during shows, had processors upgrades to deal with all the time, hacks to work with, it was an endless list.

The advantages to mpa/nats is it being used by many people, lots of people watching for errors, processor updates/issues, hacks, someone else adding in technology you totally don't understand and can't wrap your head around, someone else to manage coders that you may not be able o manage... with both you sometimes wait, sometimes you don't.

NATS/MPA3 can both look, offer, be greatly different than the next guy. You can expand them in endless ways, offer unique tools, change stats, add in any code you want really, build dating, vod, paysites, shopping sites, and make them all look different. Anything, any program has, any feature, can be built into NATS.

People play this game because it costs $1000's up to $10,000's less each month and plenty of people are wildly successful, millions a year and larger, using 3rd party software.

You have 0 idea what you are talking about.

You people just dont get it. Keep trying to save money. We pay our employees properly. have fun cutting corners trying to find real talent to stick with you long term.

again it is only people who make less who say it is "paid way too much".

i do enterprise sites now. you adult guys seriously have no idea about mainstream programming. you guys hire indian guys.

How can a premade affiliate software package cost up to $10,000 less per month?

I like NATS a lot but I don't think it's worth the $20k purchase price (I know, monthly leasing is less, which is affordable for small operations). A custom built solution if well made would cost a lot less to make and contain exactly, and only the features you need. I don't think processors modify their APIs that often to say upkeep of a custom built solution is costly and a pain - a processor is but a module plugin to a well-built system, and would contain what, 50-100 lines of code. Hardly a pain to modify.

I wonder if you've ever dealt with a well-built web app, built on a MVC-style framework? Because I can tell you, upkeep is not a hassle at all and adding new modules is so simple that working with such a framework is indeed a pleasure.

Indeed but I would still hire a strict PHP dev at $100k a year if he was top notch. I've hired over 30 PHP developers in the past 11 years and most recently I've hired on four guys that all break the $100k mark. I know how tough it is to find solid PHP devs and by solid I mean, their shit is wire tight and by wire tight I mean they have experience across the board, specifically in scalability (50k concurrent users +)... I sifted through over 500 applicants to find those 4... thankfully, we hire remote so the job market is global. If you go looking locally, no matter where you (few exceptions), you'd be very hard pressed to find someone that fits the bill (no pun intended).

Sadly, I concur... the state of the adult industry's web development is pretty sad and it's apparent from nearly every level... Just by taking into account data integrity would drop 95% of sponsors from the acceptable list; bad or wrong metadata injected into videos, bad or no model names associated to content (first names only make me want to punch someone in the face), incorrect labels, invalid landing pages and fhgs, conflicting content stats... I could go on especially if I extended the poor data management to things like; no easy way to determine what sites belong to what passes and many program's inability to something dead fucking simple like pull FHGs / Videos by a god damned DATE RANGE. Seriously... it's bad, really bad.

A person running a business may charge more than that... I've gotten quotes as high as $200 an hour for php work.


Let's reverse tracks... I just went to PayScale.com and put in PHP Developer, in my city, 10 years exp, no college as many aren't college educated and only dev in php - and are American.

The salary range is $36k-$78k, with no education and with a Master in Science added, the average is $90k. I'm sure in areas such as LA/NYC, etc the range is higher but those for sure don't represent the rest of America.

:1orglaugh

WTF does a master in science have to do with programming?

i cant believe you are arguing a quality php programmer is not worth 100k/year. it is insane. you are wrong.

+9001

I agree that NATS is an excellent choice for a program launcher... I completely understand the cost savings up front (if doing a lease) and not having to staff a developer or two up front is definitely a huge savings...

However, I'm talking about taking it to the next level. If you truly want to excel passed your competition you can't do that by offering the same tools to your affiliates... it would be like offering non unique content... Sure you can make good money off of non exclusive content and do pretty well but if you really want to set yourself apart, you're going to need to start shooting some custom stuff. Same thing goes with affiliate tools and the front end of your site... Obviously there are the basics everyone needs to support (and most of the 3rd party solutions cover close to or all of them) but there is a world of opportunity out there for those who provide more than the basics...

There's a big keyword out there in the development crowd and that's "RESTful API". Enabling authorized affiliates or even users access to public information that can be manipulated by developers to fit whatever model they'd like is where it's at. The reason being; you can make custom tools all fucking day long but you are limited to what your company can produce. If you open up the raw data you have an entire world looking to develop new ways to display and use your data to promote you. You are no longer limited to what you can produce...

Like borked stated; IF your custom solution is architect'ed and implemented correctly it's easy to maintain; especially if it's OO, follows the MVC design pattern, and generally follows best practices. Third party billing libs do NOT update often and even when they do they inevitably leave legacy versions still working.

I quoted the highest degree that was paid in the field... you would have to ask the companies why they pay more for that degree on average, not me.

You're not just arguing with me, you're arguing with 100,000 business that returned the results.... why am I wrong?

Who knows, it could have been abbreviated for... Computer Science

Either way I'd say it's a safe bet for someone with a degree in computer science to use better standards and command a better programming knowledge than a random PHP developer with no degree...

I say a safe bet because it's odds I would bet on. That's not the end all be all though as I know a LOT of guys without degrees that know far more than those with degrees...

The real testament is whether a developer pursues knowledge outside of what is required of him in his position. The experienced developers who never stop reading, learning, and experimenting with new languages and development patterns are the ones who should command six figure salaries; regardless of primary language. They are the ones that bring new ideas, the cleanest code, and the highest drive for success to the table :)

I tend to categorize developers who just "perform" at work as "producers" and there is certainly a place for them. I know a couple of really good PHP devs that simply aren't motivated to extend their knowledge outside of what is presented to them at work and while I wouldn't pay those guys a six figure salary I WOULD hire them as they tend to be "project finishers" more than "project starters". They most likely won't bring innovative solutions to the table for challenging problems but they can weigh in, and they will be the ones most likely to implement the solution derived by the heavy hitters.

Well when I had my own backend, twice now. With the first, I had 6 coders and 2 admins. Let's just say the average pay was $50k a year, that's $400k a year or $33k a month.

Reduce that to nats at $150-$600 a month and it has no way of catching up. I have no idea what TMM charges today for NATS, but if it's $20k that's still cheaper than paying staff month after month to maintain affiliate software, correctly. You could go with nats, higher an advanced programmer and a full-time person to manage your nats and save $25,000 a month.

You must have multi-coders on your own software, and all must know the backend equally.. if your main guy quits, you would be screwed otherwise. If he's sick or the wrong group sick, you're boned. When a normal project ends, nobody has to learn it over again. NATS has advantages...

Processors change all the time, for sure when you have a group of them to deal with. They require someone to continually monitor them for post issues, failures, and other various problems and changes - most of which you are never notified about and must discover yourself.

Dont make me push you onto the stack. The consequences will never be the same.

shame you can't rep! :1orglaugh

Yup, I recently added this to the current folks I'm with and while it's only used by 3 affiliates, I can assure you they are the ones saying "thank god!". They continuously request new features, formats in API output, but I don't mind implementing since I know how damn useful an API can be to an affiliate that knows what he's doing (or who has coders on board) - automation to the max.

And how much time did it take to add that? bof, whole of 1 day... just add in a new presenter, whether it be rss/xml/json/php to output the data and voila.

The developed member areas actually use the same services to populate the members area - how can it be any easier? No premade affiliate software, no premade member area software - all handled via the one main program with the different layers added on top for affiliates and member areas. :thumbsup

That extended knowledge is what makes them worth 6 figures, if it's for your company value or through multiple programming languages, and them of course producing results. If I paid "anyone" that much money, I expect some damn slick innovations to come from them.

Thing is... you can find those amazing, bad ass, off the hook guys for far less than $100k a year, then reward them in many ways as they grow with you. Same work, same quality, same skills, same loyalty - half the money and twice the potential for income growth, thus more reward.

Im a little lost now honestly.

I dont want to get off topic. But the salary of a programmer does indeed go with the general view of this thread is all i am saying.

it is not credentials it is not long job titles. it is people who are willing to work, do not want handouts and dont expect to be paid for doing nothing. alot of people feel it is their given right to be paid to be alive. and that they should not be working.

then you have people who think by just showing up to work they should be paid.

i dont have time to deal with bullshit anymore. you put up or shut up these days. put up the cash and get someone solid longterm who can always be there. or shut up and keep building small sites and taking risks on programmers who think they know.

when a company makes millions what is 100k? it is an investment in YOUR business to find REAL talent.

"highest degree that was paid in the field". who cares what the "highest degree" is? That is the problem with corporations. they look at credentials that mean nothing when it comes down to the base of all business and that is making money.

this world has become a bunch of phony job titles and opinions. if you think 100k a year invested in a longterm employee who you can trust, knows your system, is always around when you need them etc etc. you are so wrong.

i stopped running lemonade stand businesses. it is time to get real this is a global economy. as you sit around and worry what other people are paying or doing some other guy who only cares about making cash is going to come in and take your market share as you sift through resumes and applications.

i dont care what the market says. or what programmers say they can do. we found a guy who works hard. makes US MONEY. and thats all we care about. all you guys with your degrees and laughable.

we got off our original topic but it ties in.

I could not agree with the above more.

Without naming names, I remember someone on here who built a very popular script they were selling and had no concept at the time of indexes for mysql as well as a lot of other inefficient code.

Either way, the best asset a programmer can have is experience. I've personally programmed PHP since before it became PHP3 but I still find new ways/techniques to do things better every single day.

It amazes me how many people want it done fast, and for no expense.. so they end up getting really shitty, inefficient code, and then balk when I quote what it will cost for both time and reimplementation.

My favorite recent sighting is an event handler - which isn't. It's a crontab that runs every minute, for a minute, SELECT *, and deciding whether or not to take action by comparing the timestamp.. with about 4 subselect queries. Dear God, talk about O(n) inefficiency.

And those figures are minimal. Our system is custom and there are a lot more than 6 programmers. All of them are paid very well because they've been with the co from the start.

I think investing in a person that is willing to grow with you is smart...but that doesn't mean you have to invest $100k a year to make that happen - that isn't very much growing 'with you.' Lots of people will put everything they have into you, learn much more, take other incentives like vacations, insurance, investments, etc... and grow with you for far less money - and they're equally as skilled.

It's nice you found your guy...it's cool he gets paid as much as he does, good job for him.

This is spot on with the topic though, php coders thinking they're real programmers, thus worth more... When the rest of the market is telling you otherwise.

That doesn't mean he isn't worth it to you, whatever you feel he is worth it, makes him worth it. But to think you 'have' to pay that much to get the dedication, skilled, person.. is crazy talk.

IMO $100k isnt even very much to pay a fulltime head programmer. it really is not. i dont see any successful business owner telling me otherwise.

thats the point im saying is $100k isnt really "paying that much".

i agree with some of your points, but the range is indeed hugely debatable. but the range itself ie money always tells the true story.

through his development, through him basically being a fresh mind, through us telling him he will have long term job security, in us telling him he will be paid well if he puts forth effort, it builds a longterm employee.

saving 20k-30k and taking risks is not worth it when you are trying to reach an enterprise scale. especially if you are like me and like to keep a tight knit crew of people. and expect people to be sleeping, breathing and eating the project.

it is not debatable really. i know how to build and run sites. i know what hours have to be put in and the advancement of each and every section. and 100k is extremely low.

Oh for sure they are minimal... a few good coders working with you for a few years, can really add up. Then again, a dedicated team like that can produce the results to cover themselves time and time again as well. Not to discount the headaches they can create, but a solid team is just great to have either way.

MM, I think you're just missing the joke all around because you're not looking at it from your coders point of view.

If he's a head guy, programmer, ect - just because he's working with php doesn't mean anything. He would probably still find what most people create in php to be, funny - not code or actual programming, more like shit I create, kinda like riding on training wheels with no bike to support them.

It really has little to do with pay... your guy isn't just some php coder pretending to be a programmer.

It's ok i dont mean to ruin the joke or anything. I just think this thread was indeed a good place to discuss a real topic.