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For me Joel was spot on in my experience, and I disagree, you are always writing the same code again and again. Just tweaking it a bit to fit the requirements.

For me Joel was spot on in my experience, and I disagree, you are always writing the same code again and again. Just tweaking it a bit to fit the requirements. An easy example is the thousands of JSON APIs you can integrate these days, where the code to do that is almost identical, but not quite. Generally the only complications are in what stupid authentication and pagination method this API came up with. But it happens everywhere in coding. Every system might need user management, but slightttttly different each time. Or sending emails but Bob already uses Sendgrid, where traditionally you've used mailgun. Also the software industry changes all the time. That email code you wrote ten years ago using SMTP won't be reusable. The invoicing system you built for one client using PHP and jQuery 1.7 in 2012? Not appropriate to sell to a client today. Basically you should have written things at least very similar to what you're estimating on. Then you need to find your "multiplier". The figure you need to increase your gut estimate by to get the real estimate. Plus, there's a lot of legal complication about reusing code with different clients, often you should be rewriting purely to be safe for them and you from a copyright perspective.

laumars 7y ago
In my experience working in a broad range of fields in IT; web development is quite unlike any other type of development when it comes to code reuse and framework churn.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  IME, web frontend might be particularly repeatable once you drop the artistics. But when I was doing desktop development, beyond simple UI issues, almost all work I had was unique and dictated by customer's ever changing and ever weirder requirements. In backend work, similarly, pretty much everything I write is a new and unique flower on a unkempt bush of the overall architecture.
  - mattmanser 7y ago
    Not really, I've built all sorts of stuff, but ultimately when you're hooking together a client's accountancy SaaS to their order system, it's going to be roughly the same code and take the same time as the other umpteen times you've done it for other clients. But it'll be a little different as they're using Xero instead of Quickbooks which you used last, and they have a different order entity design because of X. I really feel like anyone arguing otherwise is slightly delusional. I find it particularly funny the guy two up claiming frontend might be reusable code, but backend isn't. Once you've done one invoicing/emailing/workflow/search system/time tracking/credit control/custom form designer/forecasting module/cash flow/etc./etc./etc. module for a client, you've pretty much done 'em all. And after a certain point you can then start to estimate the complexity of other systems with a small amount of talking to the client and research that let's you know the scope and the gotchas.

laumars 7y ago

In my experience working in a broad range of fields in IT; web development is quite unlike any other type of development when it comes to code reuse and framework churn.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
IME, web frontend might be particularly repeatable once you drop the artistics. But when I was doing desktop development, beyond simple UI issues, almost all work I had was unique and dictated by customer's ever changing and ever weirder requirements. In backend work, similarly, pretty much everything I write is a new and unique flower on a unkempt bush of the overall architecture.
- mattmanser 7y ago
  Not really, I've built all sorts of stuff, but ultimately when you're hooking together a client's accountancy SaaS to their order system, it's going to be roughly the same code and take the same time as the other umpteen times you've done it for other clients. But it'll be a little different as they're using Xero instead of Quickbooks which you used last, and they have a different order entity design because of X. I really feel like anyone arguing otherwise is slightly delusional. I find it particularly funny the guy two up claiming frontend might be reusable code, but backend isn't. Once you've done one invoicing/emailing/workflow/search system/time tracking/credit control/custom form designer/forecasting module/cash flow/etc./etc./etc. module for a client, you've pretty much done 'em all. And after a certain point you can then start to estimate the complexity of other systems with a small amount of talking to the client and research that let's you know the scope and the gotchas.