https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47856361

you have to tell them that they have to communicate regularly too. otherwise, how can business be done. how can issues be sorted out. they will blame you for the issues later, although they did not discuss them with you. aka cya syndrome.

if they continue not to do it, you should fire them. or use reverse signoff protocol.

"we mutually agreed at the start of this engagement, that if you don't sign off on acceptance of a given deliverable within x days, it is understood that you have accepted it and will pay for it".

If it happens more than once, leave them. it indicates they don't take you seriously.

all such terms should be put in the contract, initially.

if they don't agree to such mutually protective terms, don't sign the contract at all.

Negotiate a kill fee for the contract too.

The kill fee idea, I got from this video:

"fuck you, pay me" by mike monteiro

https://youtu.be/jVkLVRt6c1U

that is still a freebie, though, by definition. if you offer anything for free, it is a freebie.

and, offering a freebie does not necessarily signal desperation. i am not saying that one should not offer freebies, or even that one should. it all depends. and many variations are possible.

For example, escrow, via a services marketplace.

( = 3.1415929204 )

is one approximation I have read about, attributed by some, to ancient or medieval Indian or Chinese mathematicians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximations_of_pi

    use experimental :rakuast;
    
    my $ast = RakuAST::Call::Name.new(
      name => RakuAST::Name.from-identifier("say"),
      args => RakuAST::ArgList.new(
        RakuAST::StrLiteral.new("Hello world")
      )
    );

Edit: I should have looked deeper, `DEPARSE` does exactly this:

https://docs.raku.org/type/RakuAST

Neat!

  $ raku -e 'say Q|say "Hello World!"|.AST'
  RakuAST::StatementList.new(
    RakuAST::Statement::Expression.new(
      expression => RakuAST::Call::Name::WithoutParentheses.new(
        name => RakuAST::Name.from-identifier("say"),
        args => RakuAST::ArgList.new(
          RakuAST::QuotedString.new(
            segments   => (
              RakuAST::StrLiteral.new("Hello World!"),
            )
          )
        )
      )
    )
  )