I’m not sure what the alternative is, in any field, unless your work is so boutique and specialized that nobody else does it (auteur filmmakers, maybe). I used

I’m not sure what the alternative is, in any field, unless your work is so boutique and specialized that nobody else does it (auteur filmmakers, maybe). I used to work in a design firm where estimates were even more meaningless than in software. We all hated estimates but we all knew nothing would get done without them.