I've been thinking about software estimation lately, and I have a bunch of questions around time spent coding. I'm curious to hear from people who have had at least a couple years of experience developing software. When you have to estimate the amount of time you'll spend working on something, how many hours of the day do you spend codi...
What process do you use to estimate how long a (significant) programming task will take. Do you use one or more of the following: intuition/guessing reference to similar tasks whose estimated/actual lengths you recorded reference to the lengths of similar task others recorded saying it will take the length of time allocated for it (by ...
Your project manager says you must fix this bug, and asks you how long it will take. You spend some time tracing through your code, and inspecting it for defects, and don't manage to nail down any causes. Your project manager insists on a number from you, and won't take unknown for an answer. So what would you have said? ...
Every time I have to estimate time for a project (or review someone else's estimate), time is allotted for testing/bug fixing that will be done between the alpha and production releases. I know very well that estimating so far into the future regarding a problem-set of unknown size is not a good recipe for a successful estimate. However ...
I don't want to make life hard for management. I really don't. They're nice enough guys, but every time I am assigned a new project or task and get asked "how long do you think it will take to do this" I end up sputtering off ridiculous timeframes; "between a day and three weeks". I would like to believe that it's not entirely my faul...
I enjoy programming, usually. Tedious stuff is easy to get done as quickly and correctly as possible so I can get through it and not have to see it again. But a lot of my coding is fun and when I get in the 'zone' I just really enjoy myself. Which is where I make the mistake of spending too much time, perhaps adding features, perhaps ...
I have recently been befuddled with comments regarding the speed at which some people claim to be able to develop various applications. I tend to feel that there is a definite relationship between application quality, reliability and speed of delivery. I take Stackoverflow as a good example. I love the quality of the site, (and I think ...
What are the steps to estimating using function points? Is there a quick-reference guide of some sort out there? ...
If you have $100 in your hand right now. And have to bet on one of these options. That would you bet it on? The question is: What is the most important factor, that determents the cost of a project. Typing speed of the programmers. The total amount of characters typed while programming. The 'wc *.c' command. The end size of the c fil...
So you've just been put on the spot by The Boss. You've got 15 minutes to come up with a back of the envelope estimate for the addition of some new feature. Your boss (fortunately) recognizes that you can't provide an accurate estimate in that time so expecting something that is in the right order of magnitude. The question is how do yo...
Might be subjective and/or discussion.. but here goes. I've been asked to estimate a feature for the next big thing at work. I break it down.. use story points come up with a estimate. The feature however calls for interfacing with GoDiagrams a third party diagramming component in addition to various other company initiatives.. (a whole...
Some questions about Function Points: 1) Is it a reasonably precise way to do estimates? (I'm not unreasonable here, but just want to know compared to other estimation methods) 2) And is the effort required worth the benefit you get out of it? 3) Which type of Function Points do you use? 4) Do you use any tools for doing this? ...
We have an offer to develop a CRM, but we have only two months. We have team of 3 or 4 programmers (2 are experienced and 2 are good prorammers). Should we accept the offer? AND Is there any good opensource i.e. free CRM or ERP system? (written in java) with which we won't start from scratch? ...
What is a typical estimate for coding unit tests given an estimate for coding new functionality? Is this different for estimates to maintain code? ...
Estimating how long any given task will take seems to be one of the hardest parts about software development. At my current shop we estimate tasks in hours at the start of an iteration, but once the task is complete we do not use it to aide us in future estimations. How do you use the information you gather from past estimations to refi...
I work as a developer in a small digitial marketing company. I am actually the only developer there, so despite being junior (graduated in July 2007, did some freelancing), I am actually senior by definition/nature. Anyway, whilst my technical knowledge is ok (well I'm happy with it), one thing which I always wanted to and must master i...
My boss is bidding on a project to convert a desktop application into one that runs online as a client-server application. The original app has a little more than a quarter of a million lines of C++ (MFC) code that's not cleanly divided between engine and front-end. I need to come up with estimates of how long it will take and how many ...
I'm a Scrum newbie and looking to implement Scrum in my company. Obtaining buy-in is not a problem, it is my company and the developers are more than happy to work like this. The problem is that 75% of our revenue is derived from fixed length/fixed price projects. Ken Schwaber in his book, Agile Project Management with Scrum, covers t...
I am looking at the pricing of various cloud computing platforms, particularly Amazon's EC2, and a lot of the quotes are based on a unit called an Instance-Hour. I am trying to get a handle on the exact definition of an instance-hour to better compare the costs of continuing to host a web-application versus putting it out on the cloud....
Hi all there, I'm looking for a table or list of standard time estimations for developments in SAP/ABAP, something customizable in some variables according to the development team, complexity of project, etc... Something similar to: Simple Module Pool -> 10 hours Complex Module Pool -> 30 hours Definition of Dictionary -> (0,4 * numbe...