Software Estimation

Transforming Dust into Pots of Gold?

Abran, A.

In the Dark Ages the ‘Lords of the country’ were expecting that their ‘alchemists’ – the ‘gurus’ of their era – would come up with mysterious formula that would transform ‘dust’ into ‘pots of gold! A lot of current software estimation models and practices, including in Agile and COCOMO-like models, share characteristics of craft practices observed in the Dark Ages, when compared to current professional practices from engineering and sciences.