I, and others, don't agree with the blanket statement that "no estimates" is not a legitimate argument in any scenario. Can you expand on why you think there isn't a single case where estimates don't add value? Similarly, is there anything specifically in that post's claims that you think was incorrect, leading to their false conclusion?

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bpt3 a day ago | parent [-]

Okay, a scenario where you're building a hobby project alone and you don't care if or when it gets finished would be one where estimates aren't needed.

There is no scenario where it's appropriate or necessary when developing software professionally or even as a side project where others are expecting you to complete work at some point.

One of the many misconceptions in the original comment in this thread is that "worthwhile software is usually novel", which is not the case without a very specific and novel definition of worthwhile that I don't believe was intended.

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kragen 17 hours ago | parent [-]

If software isn't novel, that means some other, existing software does the same thing just as well in the same way on the same platform. So, unless it's a hobby project you're building alone, why don't you just use the existing software?

I think that writing software that isn't novel fails to be worthwhile by a perfectly ordinary, mainstream definition of "worthwhile".

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bpt3 12 hours ago | parent [-]

So you would consider a CRUD app with some basic business rules to be novel? Basically meaning that any software that requires any development effort is novel?

That's a completely valid definition of worthwhile software, but to claim it's impossible to create an estimate to complete said development is absurd.

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collingreen 8 hours ago | parent [-]

You just keep saying things are absurd or obvious but not putting anything behind it.

I hope this isn't a semantics game where things like "1 - 6 months" counts as an estimate in this context.

The point way back up this thread was accurate timelines for complicated, novel work have large error bars but those error bars aren't as bad as the equivalent error bars on estimating whatever "return" it is being pitted against.

	▲	bpt3 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I wouldn't consider something like "1-6 months" as a valid estimate, as that would indicate there is too much uncertainty and it needs to be broken down into subtasks that can be estimated with much less variance. I've written what is probably several pages now in response to two individuals who are redefining terms in order to play the exact semantic games you mentioned, but in order to claim no estimation of any sort needs to be done. We seem to be done talking past each other now that I explicitly pointed out their usage of non-standard terms and my suspicions of why (having also unfortunately lived through software development managed by Gantt chart and other unpleasant experiences where someone who had no idea what they were managing was in control of a project), which is fine with me. Feel free to describe your experience in practice when working in an organization where software developers answer to no one but themselves and are never asked for any justification for their progress or any projections of when they will be finished (both of which would require estimation to provide). If you are able to tell stakeholders something like you'll be done in 1-6 months or provide no insight at all into when your tasking will be done, do no tracking of progress internally, and perform no collaboration around the completion of synchronous tasks within your team, I'll acknowledge no estimation is taking place during that process.