*realizes this should have been a shouting thread*

*shouts at mike9322*

When asked to give estimates for things i can't estimate I like to say "Eight (pause) point four."
It's also worth looking smug after giving this estimate.

The book Software Estimation is an excellent resource.

I WISH, I REALLY WISH, THAT I WASN'T IN THE SAME BOAT THAT YOU WERE IN, BUT I AM AND IT REALLY BITES. WE'RE EVEN HAVING A MEETING ABOUT IT TOMORROW AFTER SPENDING AT LEAST 15 MINUTES ON IT TODAY!

IT'S ENOUGH TO DRIVE A PERSON BACK TO SMOKING!

Tell me a story!

A long, long time ago, in a city far, far away and high in the mountains -- where the air is thin and the microbrews are phat -- there were a bunch of cruisers. Many were former (or current) couriers, and every Wednesday night they enjoyed getting together with their friends, dressing in silly themed costumes and riding their cruiser, track and singlespeed bicycles around from bar to bar to bar until either the bars closed or they were too drunk to balance... or both.

One of the cruisers, an enterprising young Irish lad, decided that the key to ultimate cruising bliss was to build himself a 'Drunken Cruiser', to link the theme of boozing in a metaphorical endless, infinite feedback loop; a veritable Moebius of debauchery. Being that he was himself a metalworker, and had a property full of machining equipment, he cracked a 40 and got to work.

Thus the Ketel One Valdez was born. Built in inebriation, intended never to be ridden sober, weighing in at a svelte 83 lbs, stretching 9 feet long, and carrying a fifth of Russia's finest in the conveniently located faux fuel tank, this behemoth inspires fear in the hearts of fixed gear riders up and down the Front Range.

I'm sure you can only imagine the pure visceral terror felt by the rider of sixteen pounds of gazelle-like grace and noble purpose that is a fixed gear bicycle, as this juggernaut hurtles out of control on an irrevocable intercept vector, the high child-like scream of its thoroughly inadequate braking system sounding as the klaxons of destiny.

on Wednesday night, the KOV claimed its fifth victim.*

≡ Click to see image ≡
*no fixed gears were harmed in the creation of this story

At least your being asked for input. I had a boss who would just wing it whenever the techs were too busy to meet with a client even though he had no clue of how long a task would take. Sometimes he'd wildly overbid and we'd miss the job. Othertimes he'd wildly underbid and he'd end up effectively charging out $5.00/hour.

lonefrontranger wins.

matildaben, does that book teach how to become omniscient? If so, sign me up!

Actually, we use the Star Trek system of estimation at work:

Boss: How long to do this.
Me: To do it properly, 40 hours development. I could do a half assed job in 10.
Boss: We're going live in three hours. Can you have it done by then?
Me: There's no way. The engines canna take this.
Boss: We really, really need this.
Me: Make me a coffee, take my calls and don't disturb me. I'm going in.

This has been happening for the last 15 years. What I've learnt in that time is that with the right tools, you can get a working system for pretty much anything live and working (albeit badly) in whatever time you have available. Or, to firm that up a bit, in whatever time you have available + a whatever time is needed to demonstrate it to the customer + whatever time is needed for the customer to get the import data ready + whatever time is needed to train the customer.

Of course, any bug fixing would use up the extra development time plus some more.