Coding, Fast and Slow: Developers and the Psychology of Overconfidence
I cannot identify with this article.<p>Personally I know that my estimates are wrong before and after I make them and I never believed any estimate that I made ... I only make estimates because on every project I worked on, either managers or clients wanted those estimates. So it was for their peace of mind.<p>On the other hand I always make estimates good enough to have <i>something</i> working, like a proof of concept, because in case the shit hits the fan, you at least want to show the client or the manager that some progress has been made.<p>This is yet one of those articles that speaks about the pitfalls of the Waterfall model, hinting on the virtues of the various Agile methodologies and it's kind of nauseating. On one hand I feel some arrogance on the part of the writer, on the other hand it reminds me of how awful consultancy work is, because consultancy only works well when you're doing the same thing over and over again.<p>My favourite development methodology is easy to explain. It's a simple cycle: hack <-> ship. I also lie when giving estimates.