Indeed, Corazon, this works in some small cases - I work this way with some customers (trustworthy people I know for a long time) on rather small projects.

Yes, Dave, and, most of the time, you tell them you need some details, and the project isn't needed anymore...:doh:

Dave, Jaiprakash, I have a very bitter experience with customers requiring this "extra stuff"...just when I was sure we made a "deal", everything changed, and I had to re-negotiate...eventually I spent more time negotiating than working for his project :| And please take into consideration that analysing the requirements comprises work for which I seldom get any payment... :|

I work as a freelance programmer for a couple of years. Things went rather good until recently - I have some "recurring" customers, etc...The trouble is that now I receive "job requests" asking for a "flat price" for projects they barely describe. I cannot give a "flat price" and a time estimation without knowing how much work involves the project, so I answer by asking for specifications and technical details. In almost every case, there is no answer...The same if I specify my hourly rate - these guys seem to take into consideration only "flat prices" per project... Does anyone of you have such an experience? How do you handle these "requests"? Did anyone of you tried to hire a freelancer? If yes, do you ask him/her to specify quotes and time estimation without providing technical specs? Any advice?...Thanks...

Well, Miszou...it seems that your supervisor needs to read the SQL Server Books Online...there is also a good article on this in the "SQL Server Standard" magazine (the March/April 2005 issue)...so...ask him/her to spend some time learning (more) SQL (and perhaps .NET?)...The stored procs are supported by any serious RDBMS - I've been told that even recent MySQL supports them... By the way, I do not understand why does your company still uses classic ASP? -- modified at 6:36 Thursday 4th January, 2007

I changed job 7 times in ~15 years. Here is what I learned "the hard way": - jobs in a big company are dreadful, unless you are a born politician; social incompetency is never forgiven. - for me, working in small companies was much better; groups are smaller; your reputation is not always built based on what is your boss opinion on you; I even managed to obtain training - this never happened in the big companies I worked for. - but the best is to work for YOUR OWN company...