Ask HN: Developers, how do you estimate projects and write proposals?
(about estimating - I don't tend to write proposals) You could have a look at <a href="https://www.estigator.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.estigator.com</a><p>(NB it's a half-finished side project right now)<p>I'm no longer a contractor, although I have been, and I'm frequently asked by my new employers to provide estimates for dev tasks.<p>Trouble is, businesses/clients tend to see an estimate as a promise, or a target.  From the developer's point of view it is hard to do anything other than guessing (at smaller and smaller granularities).  Book recommendation: "The Clean Coder" by Robert C. Martin - esp. Chapter 10)<p>I started building <a href="https://www.estigator.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.estigator.com</a> to see if I could learn React, and come up with something to help me illustrate just exactly who's taking a risk when we say something like "it'll probably take about 3.5 days"<p>I wasn't quite ready to "Show HN" with this one, but your question made me think of it straight away.  Would love to know what people think