Okay, sure. Not "just as" wrong since a certain class of pitfalls are eliminated by deep knowledge of your tools. But I'd argue that that's not where the bulk

Okay, sure. Not "just as" wrong since a certain class of pitfalls are eliminated by deep knowledge of your tools. But I'd argue that that's not where the bulk of the uncertainty comes from. I think that in the software industry as a whole, most of the problems are solved by people with at least a decent understanding of their tools, and estimates still suck. The problems is that the tasks we deal with are always new, unsolved problems. That's the nature of software. Unsolved problems come with uncertainty. That's the nature of unsolved problems. Carpenters on the other hand deal mostly with solved problems. They just need to execute.