> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rich Kulawiec
> Sent: Monday, November 16, 1998 11:28 PM
> ...that's the terminology I learned while at a
> certain Three Initial Company. (Anybody else read "Eyebeam"?)
Funny, IBM invented the idea of function points. It was
inspired by my old buddy Harlan Mills, and developed by
Al Almeden (no, that last name is wrong. Al something).
I haven't seen a project at IBM in years that didn't use FPs.
> > How do you negotiate a contract with a customer if you don't know
> > how much it's going to cost to develop the software?
>
> I wing it. Yep. I make it up out of thin air.
That means you have to do all your contracts on a T&M basis, or
maybe CPFF if you're sufficiently confident in your own guesses.
The problem with CPFF is that programmers who are optimistic about
their estimating ability tend also to be optimistic about their
productivity; if you underestimate, you end up working most of
the time for a lousy $75/hour or whatever your base rate is.
> More seriously, based on what I have observed, my estimates based on
> seat-of-the-pants feel have as much chance of being accurate or inaccurate
> as estimates based on extensive analysis, trends, models, etc.
I assume you're comparing your seat-of-the-pants estimate to someone
else's analysis- and model-based estimate. OK, I'm pretty good at
wing-it estimates too, from 32 years of practice. More, I know how
to do the analysis, construct the Cocomo model (actually Cocomo+),
factor in my gut feel, and track actuals vs. estimates. Finally, I
have records of my original estimates, how things actually turned out,
and why they were different, so I can adjust. If a customer is concerned
about budget overrun or late delivery, he comes to me and pays my rates.
> Regardless: applying this sort of analysis to open-source software
> like Linux is pointless: it's *free*.
You don't charge your customers? That would explain much, but
I don't think so. I can't think of a job I've been on where the cost
of buying or leasing software wasn't down in the noise compared to
labor costs. Even back when IBM was the current Evil Empire and
charged $30K annual lease for a FORTRAN compiler that bombed when
your comments were too long. For a web server use, Linux isn't
going to beat out NT simply because it costs a thousand or so less.
Bob Munck
____________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now
Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants
If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done
directly from our website for all our lists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
