How to find a mentor/code reviewer for freelancer?

Question

About 6 moths ago I switched to fulltime freelance job. Before that I worked in enterprise environment with highly professional craftsmen :)

I'm striving in improving my skills in Object Oriented Design and software architecture.

I read lots of books about OOD, T.D.D., patterns(implementation, design, architectural). I like to research interesting open-source projects with beautiful design.

The only problem I have is that I don't have enough feedback on my code.

Recently I've started to participating in some small Open source PEAR project, my patches were accepted, but I don't think it is very quality/useful feedback.

I'm not a fun of http://refactormycode.com/ because it can be useful only for implementation patterns or some small refactorings, which is not what I mostly need.

My ideas:

• choose very hard task at some open source project, so it won't be so easy for your patches to be accepted.
• Take my laptop and go to familiar developers, which I appreciate in that desired area to ask what they about my code.

What do you think about it?

What should I do to solve this problem?

Answer 1

You could start an online community about it to rival refactormycode.com.

Try making some good contacts online who would look at your code. Otherwise, try asking your real life friends to do it, though this probably won't get too much response as they'll be busy.

Answer 2

Pay another freelancer/consultant better than you to look at your code. You can't expect people to give away their valuable time for free. Time is money, afterall.