The myth of software development time estimation

The myth of software development time estimation(medium.com)

12 points by samk117 9 years ago | 7 comments

bediger4000 9 years ago |

I heartily agree. You might also want to read:

http://scribblethink.org/Work/kcsest.pdf

http://scribblethink.org/Work/Softestim/softestim.html

I don't know why this isn't a standard belief.

samk117 9 years ago | |

thanks for the links!

samk117 9 years ago |

update: Because of the popularity of this article here and on Slashdot, and the controversial views I express in it, I have been terminated from my contracting position at my current employer, which was my main source of income. You can read more information and (if you like) donate to help my cause here: https://www.gofundme.com/lost-job-bc-of-engineering-article

samk117 9 years ago |

^ author here if anyone has any questions or comments!

tehrealjames 9 years ago | |

Going to have to say it... I really cannot stand this pseudo intellectual writing style. The article is written like you just discovered a Thesaurus. Good writing is clear, concise, and simple. This section:

>Even if we completely ignore the “human” element at play in the development cycle, the notion that we could come up with accurate software development time estimations is the quintessential unrealistic expectation — a fool’s errand. Its intractability comes not from incompetency or from a lack of discipline, but from a deep-seated, fundamental limitation imposed on our reality and codified in the proof of the Church-Turing thesis

Is just painful..

samk117 9 years ago | | |

I could have just written: "Even if we ignore the unpredictability of humans, there are deep, logical, Halting Problem-related reasons why coming up with accurate software development time estimations is idiotic." But then this wouldn't feel like a grand project that points out something fundamental perhaps a lot of people have missed, and doesn't convey the degree to which I think the halting problem actively limits what we humans can and can't do. I didn't word it a particular way to sound intellectual, I chose each word to convey the pseudo-religious experience of realizing that those hidden gotchas you experience while you code on a daily basis are there because of something fundamental, on the order of a physical law of the cosmos, so quit trying to reason around that fact with time-based estimations that pretend that everything is always going to go even close to what was planned. If you can find a non-douchy-intellectual way of giving me a pseudo-religious experience, then by all means, show me. It should sound like morgan freedman is reading it from the script of Cosmos.

edit: starting to like my edit better :/

samk117 9 years ago | | |

Sorry you'll have to deal, for undergrad I double majored CS and Philosophy. That's literally my favorite 2-sentence section in the entire article, and I spent about 45 minutes to an hour revising just that section for flow and meaning. I am going to cry now.