Jon Pretty

In software dev you get threads like this which stipulate that estimation is dumb, and therefore it isn't your fault, and someone else should deal with it. Estimation *is* dumb, but it's a nessecary evil in a world where projects get executed based on the costs involved.

Estimating is stupid and a waste of time, but not estimating is irresponsible and puts your team members, particularly the ones responsible to answering to the rest of the business in a really difficult spot.

Not wanting to estimating exemplifies what other people absolutely hate about working with software devs: a total lack of empathy for anyone but themselves and their own needs, and a childish attitude when inconvenicing everyone else because it suits their work style to do so

While I think there’s a lot of truth in this tweet, it’s quite overgeneralized. It’s also important to remember that software really does have things that are provably insanely hard on fundamental levels. Not just hard for an individual but hard for the whole universe.

Other industries don't do difficult stuff?

When an engineer is asked to build a bridge spanning 100km, they simply say “no” and people believe. Software developers are asked to do the equivalent of this (and more) on a regular basis, and “no” is not accepted. Not every project, not every day, but more often than you think

v. fair. I think that people have an inherent understanding of bridge building and can look at a 100km span and go "no freakin' way", whereas software is this huge unknown. It doesn't help that software ppl regularly say software is"magic" and that "you can do anything" w/it.

But this (as a docs person) – boils down to communication skills, and why I strongly believe the best sr. engineers aren't 10x engineers but really good communicators.