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> they have very different goals than you have I've been seeing stories like this about out of control software projects as long as I've been working as a deve

> they have very different goals than you have I've been seeing stories like this about out of control software projects as long as I've been working as a developer (so since about 1992). The conclusion is always that the root cause is either malice or incompetence - but it's awfully suspicious that software is conspicuously alone in attracting this much incompetent malice. Of course, we hear stories like this about general contractors, but they're the exception rather than the rule - for the most part, when somebody hires somebody else to build a house, they get a house and it costs mostly what they were quoted up front and takes mostly as long as they were told it was going to take. While I guess nobody would take time to write about a software project that went exactly as predicted, my experience is that those are the exception rather than the rule, and the cases where a software project was accurately quoted in advance are relatively trivial projects. I can understand why the people who are writing the checks want software projects to be predictable, but in 30 years of practice, I've never figured out a way to accurately predict them, nor have I met anybody else who could. I've met a lot of people who accuse me (and software developers in general) of malicious incompetence for not being able to foretell projects in advance, I have yet to meet one who rolls up their sleeves and says, "here, let me show you how to estimate this stuff accurately" except in very abstract terms like "first write down every task you're going to do, then write down how long each task is going to take, and then add up those numbers and voila! Estimate complete!"

interactivecode 4y ago
Heck no building a house or renovating anything is always way more expensive than the initial offered price. Hence the rate for fixed price building of houses is so much more than regular pricing. Somehow build always take way longer and so many if not all contractors leave problematic results.
mlyle 4y ago
> for the most part, when somebody hires somebody else to build a house, they get a house and it costs mostly what they were quoted up front and takes mostly as long as they were told it was going to take. ! Every single time I've hired a general-- I've had to fight scope creep; fight to get them to actually complete work; fight to get the actual quoted materials; fight to fix problematic subcontractor work; fight to avoid price increases. You can get close to original scope and original pricing, but for me it's always involved the implied threat of litigation. Note this is the only sector of business life where I've had to be this confrontational. (Work with individual trades has been not bad at all, but this has tended to be tightly scoped projects with relatively simple dependencies). > software project was accurately quoted in advance are relatively trivial projects. Even simple software projects tend to have much deeper interdependencies between work items, and bigger nonlinear combination of work impacts, than other domains. If someone changes something small on the fly in a normal construction project, and a pipe is in a slightly different place-- it's usually no big deal. It may involve a little bit of rework.
- corrral 4y ago
  > Every single time I've hired a general-- I've had to fight scope creep; fight to get them to actually complete work; fight to get the actual quoted materials; fight to fix problematic subcontractor work; fight to avoid price increases. Our experience with looking into GCs for a kitchen remodel was that their premium was so outrageous and their ideas/plans so mediocre that we were much better off just doing it ourselves. All the specialist contractors and laborers who actually did the work were basically fine, easy-enough to work with, charged reasonable rates, and did good work. I think we paid about 1/2 what the cheapest GC wanted (some were way higher) and used much better materials than any of them were calling for in their initial plans they used for their bids. I can only assume their entire market is people with so much money that they don't give a shit what it costs as long as they don't have to do any work themselves. "$15,000 to save me some googling and phone calls? Sure, seems reasonable"

interactivecode 4y ago

Heck no building a house or renovating anything is always way more expensive than the initial offered price. Hence the rate for fixed price building of houses is so much more than regular pricing. Somehow build always take way longer and so many if not all contractors leave problematic results.

mlyle 4y ago

> for the most part, when somebody hires somebody else to build a house, they get a house and it costs mostly what they were quoted up front and takes mostly as long as they were told it was going to take. ! Every single time I've hired a general-- I've had to fight scope creep; fight to get them to actually complete work; fight to get the actual quoted materials; fight to fix problematic subcontractor work; fight to avoid price increases. You can get close to original scope and original pricing, but for me it's always involved the implied threat of litigation. Note this is the only sector of business life where I've had to be this confrontational. (Work with individual trades has been not bad at all, but this has tended to be tightly scoped projects with relatively simple dependencies). > software project was accurately quoted in advance are relatively trivial projects. Even simple software projects tend to have much deeper interdependencies between work items, and bigger nonlinear combination of work impacts, than other domains. If someone changes something small on the fly in a normal construction project, and a pipe is in a slightly different place-- it's usually no big deal. It may involve a little bit of rework.

corrral 4y ago
> Every single time I've hired a general-- I've had to fight scope creep; fight to get them to actually complete work; fight to get the actual quoted materials; fight to fix problematic subcontractor work; fight to avoid price increases. Our experience with looking into GCs for a kitchen remodel was that their premium was so outrageous and their ideas/plans so mediocre that we were much better off just doing it ourselves. All the specialist contractors and laborers who actually did the work were basically fine, easy-enough to work with, charged reasonable rates, and did good work. I think we paid about 1/2 what the cheapest GC wanted (some were way higher) and used much better materials than any of them were calling for in their initial plans they used for their bids. I can only assume their entire market is people with so much money that they don't give a shit what it costs as long as they don't have to do any work themselves. "$15,000 to save me some googling and phone calls? Sure, seems reasonable"