Subj : Re: How much should I charge for fixed-price software contract?
To   : comp.programming,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.lang.lisp
From : Phlip
Date : Sun Aug 14 2005 03:23 am

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t wrote:

>> And it shows my confidence in my estimates.
>
> Actually I interpret it oppositely to you: If I bill on the basis of
> half-hour tasks, then it means I need at the end of a half hour to get
> feedback whether my estimate was correct or not before I proceed to the
> next half hour, that I don't trust my own estimates longer than a half
> hour into the future. This is great for me just starting at contract
> work like this, where if I make a horrible mistake in estimation, it
> takes me five hours instead of the half hour I estimated, off by a full
> order of magnitude, still it's only 4.5 hours of unpaid work for my
> mistake, no big deal, less time than I spend responding to newsgroup
> posts in the average day. It's not like if I contract for a job on the
> basis it'll take me a half year and it actually takes me five years of
> which I get paid only for the first half year, and I don't get paid one
> penny until after the product is finally delivered 4.5 years after
> promised, if the buyer hasn't found a way to back out of the contract
> already by then.

Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to take you up to the 
bridge. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cause I don't...

-- 
  Marvin
  the Sirius Cybernetics Corp(r) Android
  with Genuine People Personality(tm)

.