> I've been writing code for 40 years and I still get caught out myself. I try to give realistic deadlines [...]
Call it immaturity, or perhaps just not being a "team player", but I've been coding for 15 years and stopped giving time estimates about 5 years ago.
I simply refuse, and instead, explain that I would just be making something up, and I'm not interested in taking responsibility for an arbitrary guess, since I know from experience how it can come back to haunt me.
I try to suggest saving such speculation for a time, hopefully in the near future, where the initial research has been completed and _some_ progress has been made on the foundation of the requested work, so that my speculation can have some basis in reality.
If all else fails, I give a wild estimate that I don't expect anyone to agree to, such as 2 years for work that might not even take 2 or 3 months.
Call it immaturity, or perhaps just not being a "team player", but I've been coding for 15 years and stopped giving time estimates about 5 years ago.
I simply refuse, and instead, explain that I would just be making something up, and I'm not interested in taking responsibility for an arbitrary guess, since I know from experience how it can come back to haunt me.
I try to suggest saving such speculation for a time, hopefully in the near future, where the initial research has been completed and _some_ progress has been made on the foundation of the requested work, so that my speculation can have some basis in reality.
If all else fails, I give a wild estimate that I don't expect anyone to agree to, such as 2 years for work that might not even take 2 or 3 months.