I think a university student is a good idea.
Some considerations though are in order:
You need commitment. If you already have some time investment in the project in $/Hour, then you would want something in writing of a projected end date. Students are poor candidates for lawsuits as they are already up-to-the-hilt in debt to start with.(BTDT
) A student may have higher priorities on his time than your project, ie: surf boarding,sports,summer jobs,etc. A contract is a good idea. All the same his cost should be very low. All considered, he should accept a pay-when-complete arrangement with a promissory note to anchor the deal.
He should be able to provide references and 'complex' sites he has built. Failing that, simply having a conscientious individual who is a go getter and non quitter is to your advantage.
Everyone knows a person who "likes making websites", maybe a family member
or someone you can trust. In this arrangement set down your specs, and just see what he can produce. Maybe he will be keen enuff to be driven to finish it, especially since your dangling the $ incentive on completion. The trade off here is longer development time if you have the time.
Time for phases of acceptance testing. You will need to set milestones at which time he will need to give you some demos as how your site is progressing so far. This is also a time where you can make minor changes that don't equate to major dollar increases. maybe you dont like the way an edit box is displayed, or you feel an image takes too long to load,etc.
Experience. You should hire a student in Computer Science, and not a hobby programmer, and one who is trying for a degree in computer programming. The former would have by now gathered quite a library of routines he can reuse in your application thus saving developement time, and would be an accomplished programmer. He should be able to show you his accomplishments so far, and backing that up with actual code to show you with working models. PHP is a great cross platform language. In the same line, and as a sister language for client side apps, a knowledge of Delphi or similar would be an asset.
After project guarantees. He should agree in contract to give you initial free support, then gradual paid support has you get to know the bugs in your site are gradually becoming less prominent. Up to a year in total is not uncommon.
Spence
