Robert Blackburn - Web Developer

I've been reading Wikinomics, a book on online collaboration, and it gave me an idea I wanted to run by everyone to see if it has any merit at all.

For a long time I've been trying to figure out how to make unit testing more commonplace within the CF community. CFers aren't alone in this actually, there are a lot of developers out there for various languages who know they should unit test, but for one reason or another never get to it.

So, here is my idea. It would be a web site were managers of projects (open source or otherwise) can post their unit testing needs. Developer can then search the list of the projects in need to find ones they would like to contribute too. The project managers with a budget could offer a commission for the job or in the case of an open source or non-profit project the project managers can simply be asking for assistance from weekend-warriors.

This site would just be there to put project managers in contact with those developers who are ready, willing, and able to write unit tests. It would be up to the developers/project managers to work out the terms of the job if any money is to be exchanged.

The advantage to a project managers would be that they can quickly, easily, and cheaply get unit tests created for their project. How many managers of OS project out there would love to have help writing unit tests? The advantage to developers is it provides a place to keep their skills sharp, help out a project, or make a little extra cash – or just simply for bragging rights.

I've created a very simple prototype, which I will release once completed if it sounds like their might be some interest. ColdFusion would be my primary focus, but of course the site would include areas for JUnit or other xUnit frameworks. This first iteration will be very basic, but future improvements might include developer ratings were PMs can rate developers they've worked with (much like the e-bay rating system) or even paypal integration.

So, does this sound like something you developers and project managers would be interested in? Or should I just focus my limited energy into something else?