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Let’s be honest. Your boss asked a reasonable question and your answer could have been something like “I need a day to familiarize myself with the code so I can

Let’s be honest. Your boss asked a reasonable question and your answer could have been something like “I need a day to familiarize myself with the code so I can give a rough but reasonable estimate. Also, I apologize I and the team fucked up by not sharing knowledge properly with each other and letting knowledge islands emerge”

delichon 2y ago
You are very good at this. Without even knowing what the code is about you are able to discern that it would take me about a day to get to sufficient familiarity. Meanwhile I, who have been working on the project for twelve years and wrote most of it, still don't know. Are you available as a mentor?
- DandyDev 2y ago
  So you worked for twelve years on that code base and you still don’t know how to estimate a bug fix? There seem to be other problems then. And you are right, I don’t know anything about that code base, certainly not enough to know if estimates should be easy or not. But the fact that they aren’t is a sign of problems either way. And I stand by my point that your boss’ question is reasonable, and the team should do some introspection to learn why such a fair question cannot be easily answered
  - delichon 2y ago
    I have seen bugs, in this project and several others, that range from actually "actually a feature" to both serious and unsolvable. Most of them are somewhere in the middle. But before knowing anything about the code or the bug, I can't tell where this task will land on that distribution. If you coerce an estimate out of me all I can do is guess the median value, which you can fill in without my help, while I go and work on the bug. Asking me for a number before I know anything about it is a waste of both of our time.
drewcoo 2y ago
Why would you say the question is reasonable? To me, it is not a reasonable question because there are so many assumptions smuggled in with it.
- DandyDev 2y ago
  What assumptions are part of the entirely reasonable question “how long would it take to fix this bug?”

delichon 2y ago

You are very good at this. Without even knowing what the code is about you are able to discern that it would take me about a day to get to sufficient familiarity. Meanwhile I, who have been working on the project for twelve years and wrote most of it, still don't know. Are you available as a mentor?

DandyDev 2y ago
So you worked for twelve years on that code base and you still don’t know how to estimate a bug fix? There seem to be other problems then. And you are right, I don’t know anything about that code base, certainly not enough to know if estimates should be easy or not. But the fact that they aren’t is a sign of problems either way. And I stand by my point that your boss’ question is reasonable, and the team should do some introspection to learn why such a fair question cannot be easily answered
- delichon 2y ago
  I have seen bugs, in this project and several others, that range from actually "actually a feature" to both serious and unsolvable. Most of them are somewhere in the middle. But before knowing anything about the code or the bug, I can't tell where this task will land on that distribution. If you coerce an estimate out of me all I can do is guess the median value, which you can fill in without my help, while I go and work on the bug. Asking me for a number before I know anything about it is a waste of both of our time.

drewcoo 2y ago

Why would you say the question is reasonable? To me, it is not a reasonable question because there are so many assumptions smuggled in with it.

DandyDev 2y ago
What assumptions are part of the entirely reasonable question “how long would it take to fix this bug?”