by cauch | 2026-01-24 20:40:42+00:00
I always have a lot of questions when I see this kind of articles, and I don't think any articles properly answer it.

1. What is different in software engineering with respect to any other work that require exploration?

The author mentions "it requires research, it's why it's impossible". But plenty of work requires research and people doing it are also asked to provide an estimate: writing a book, managing a complicated construction project, doing scientific research, ...

In all of this, it is also well known that time estimation is tricky and there are plenty of examples of deadline not met. Yet, it looks like that these people understand 1) that their estimations are guesses, 2) that still giving an estimation is useful for their collaborators.

I've worked in academic research, and famously, you sometimes need to write a document for a grant detailing the timeline of your project for the next two years. We all knew what it was (an estimation that will deviate from reality), but we understood why it was needed and how to do it.

I now work as researcher in the private sector, sometimes very closely with the software developers, sometimes doing the same work as them, so I have a strong experience of what it is asked. And I'm often surprised how often software developers are thinking that they are "special" when they have to deal with something that a lot of other persons have to deal with too, and how often they are all lost by this situation while other persons manage to go around it pragmatically.

2. Why is so many of these articles not reflecting in a balanced way on why people asked time estimates?

When the article comes to explain why developers are asked for estimate, the main reason seems to be "because non developers are idiots, or because of the checking box system, or because of the big bad managers who want to justify their role, or because it is the metric to judge the quality of the work".

But at the same time, if they need something, the same developers asks for time estimate all the time. This is just something needed to organize yourself. If you know that the builders will work in your home for 6 months, you know that you need to prepare yourself differently than if it is 2 days. And how many time a developer asked for something, did not get it in time, and did not conclude that it demonstrates the worker was incompetent? (I'm sure _you_ don't do that, rolling my eyes at the usual answer, but you have to admit that such conclusion is something that people do, including developers)

Why in these articles, there is never reflection on the fact that if you don't give any estimate, your colleagues, the people you are supposed to work with, and not against, don't have the information they need to work properly? The tone is always adversarial: the bad guys want a time estimate. And, yes, of course, we have situations where the admin becomes the goals and these requests are ridiculous. But on the other hand, I also understand that developers are asked to follow more process when at the same time they act like teenage-rebel condescending kids. I'm not sure what is the distribution, but even if it is not 50-50, it tells so much about the level of reflection when the article is unable to conceive that, maybe, maybe, sometimes, the developer is not the victim genius surrounded by idiots.

(in fact, in this article, there is the mention of "Some engineers think that their job is to constantly push back against engineering management, and that helping their manager find technical compromises is betraying some kind of sacred engineering trust". But, come on, this is a terrible flaw, you should be ashamed of being like that. This sentence is followed by a link to an article that, instead of highlighting how this behavior should be considered as a terrible flaw, frames it as "too idealistic")