Well, how about an illusion that's totally silent except for a small square hole? That should block most of the noise. Maybe. This farmer doesn't actually know.

He brings a bundle of typed notes on paper to the meeting.

He'll try that, maybe it'll work.

Nimo asks lots of careful questions about what exactly he needs a computer to be able to do at the brewery.

He'll need to buy a big farming machine, right? The farmer has some he could part with.

The brewer has never heard of flowcharts and keeps going back to add more things to the things he already told her about, or deciding that actually he doesn't need that.

Can he test one with an illusion first, see if it actually runs quiet enough?

"...Can I visit the brewery and see what happens on a typical day?"

Sure! He has to do the illusion or find someone to make it, though.

"It's just me working there most of the time. Still figuring things out, I made a very nice lager last month though. I can give you a tour and such. Probably a good idea. Don't know computers, really, but the vampire said what I got would work probably. Now? Tomorrow?"

He can find an illusion mage, easy.

"Now works."

Well, come back when he does. Farmer is going to get back to work for now.

He takes Nimo to the brewery and goes around, explaining all the equipment, commenting things like, "Would've been nice to know as soon as the temperature on this hit 30. It'll be a bit too bitter now. And I want to be able to see the Carbon-di-oxide levels from the last three days, sos I can guess how much the yeast has processed, and..." He can go on like this for a while.

Nimo suggests some ideas for what she might do for him.

And how much is that gonna cost him? He already kind of unwisely dropped a lot of cash on the computer and accessories. Maybe she can do just this one feature for less money, and see how he likes it, and then later he'll have the money for the rest of it.

"The amount of time and effort this is going to take me doesn't scale linearly with the number of features. ...Also, I think I can do some of this cheaper magically, I'd need to work with an illusion mage but I think we could get you a CO2 meter and thermometer faster that way. Faster and cheaper. But if you want to change things later there'd be advantages to having done it with a computer to start with, I think."

Hmmm.

He'll think it over.

A couple days later, he's decided that he wants it all done with the computer but he wants a fixed price for the final product working correctly to this list of features, no charging-by-the-hour stuff.

What fixed price is he thinking of?

According to his automaton-programming friend, something like this is actually really complicated and hard, so the number he names is appropriately large. Not a fortune, but several months of rent and groceries, at any rate.

Yeah, okay. She can do it for that price if he'll agree not to try to resell any part of it for a year after she finishes it.

(She's already thinking about how she can reuse code from this for customers who suck less.)

Sure. He was just going to use it himself anyway. Great. This includes a few hours of fixing it if it doesn't work right when he actually tries it out. Right? Also, when will it be done? Also also he wants like five copies of it. Just in case.

Fine. And she doesn't even try to trick him into paying five times as much for five copies even though she is tempted.

(He wouldn't have gone for it. He probably could've been charged a hundred rings for each extra copy, while they only cost about twenty to make, but he does understand the idea of copying programs.)

She stops by Nik's store for some more memory cards a little while later.

Nik happens to be heading out from his office at the time, coincidentally. 

"Oh, hello. Any new discoveries today, Nimo?"

"I've discovered customers aren't much fun. But they pay, so that's something."

"Oh dear. Bad at describing things in a way that's easy to code from? Demanding and impatient?"

"It's almost like you have customers too!"

"Well, get used to it o budding software engineer. Charge the especially bad ones random fees, call it the expedite planning fee or something. If they balk, demand will be high enough you can pick and choose clients sooner or later, if you're good enough."

She laughs. "Oh, thanks! This guy's probably not especially bad - the one you recommended me to, by the way, thanks I guess."

"I had the measure of him as run-of-the-mill bad customer, not particularly bad customer, thought it'd be a good experience for the both of you. No problem."