I think that this is a valuable lesson for CS students. I used to underestimate time for the same reasons these students did. The core technology (in this case,

I think that this is a valuable lesson for CS students. I used to underestimate time for the same reasons these students did. The core technology (in this case, listening for the clipboard events) fits in the estimate. Making a product that can actually be useful will take much longer. Estimating effort is important. Work is an investment, so the decision to invest changes with the amount of work. I think this lesson can only be learned the hard way: create a new application and try to get users. You’ll learn where you spend time and get better at estimating. You’ll also appreciate why “simple” features appear slowly in software you use.