3 ms·
No, that's category 3, pi^2, or roughly 10 times the estimate. Category 1 is >I've written a script to get the data from tables 1 to 24 of this database, now
by buzzkillington 7y ago
No, that's category 3, pi^2, or roughly 10 times the estimate.
Category 1 is
>I've written a script to get the data from tables 1 to 24 of this database, now I need to write one for table 25. It should take me an hour.
>Oh look, it took me nearly 2 hours because I forgot that table is owned by a different user to all the other ones and I didn't have the right permissions.
- jacobolus 7y agoSo to clarify: what the top-level poster here is calling “non-trivial” you are calling “category 3”, and heuristically estimating that it will take 10x longer than anticipated. But this (a) is still quite optimistic, and (b) ignores variance. The potential time a new research project could take is unbounded.
- meheleventyone 7y agoYup, padding estimates is akin to what you might do if you had a repeatable process but there was some predictable variance (e.g. illness, machinery maintenance, holidays) rather than a bunch of unknown and exploratory problem solving.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoYou're almost never wandering into complete unknown. Your original estimate already encompasses your uncertainty; padding it protects you from optimism.
- meheleventyone 7y agoRight but the padding is basically an estimate of how certain you are about your uncertainty. So not only does the original estimate not encompass your own uncertainty but it's completely arbitrarily scaled by multiples of the original estimate. Which is rather to say the original estimate is completely useless. Not to mention the OP is never more than 1/5 of this greatly inflated estimate off!!! Whereas padding in a more assembly line like situation can actually be measured and forecast from historical data.