Clearly the house painting analogy fails. All analogies do. My point was that the two extremes are fixed-bid and hourly. For the sake of a client, a programm

Clearly the house painting analogy fails. All analogies do. My point was that the two extremes are fixed-bid and hourly. For the sake of a client, a programmer with some expertise should be able to give a reasonable estimate based on a set of requirements. I would say your house painter analogy fails as well. Fixed-bid contracting for software development is nothing like painting a house sight unseen, with only vague descriptors. Analogies aren't really the point though...