Warp wrote:

>   It's considered *normal* in many companies that implementing a feature
> takes several months, and if a competent programmer implements it in a
> week it causes a jaw-dropping effect. Bosses usually don't have the
> slightest idea about how long a specific features should really take
> to implement. (Often it goes both ways: Features which are small and
> can be cleanly and efficiently implemented in a few days may be implemented
> by incompetent programmers in several months, and no boss even wonders
> about it. Yet some features which truely require many months to fully
> implement even by a team of competent expert programmers might have
> completely insane deadline requirements.)

I wonder why this is the case.

I mean, if you want a bunch of construction engineers to design and 
build a bridge, the people doing the work usually have a pretty good 
idea how long it will take. What's different about software engineering?

[Other than the fact that a ridiculously badly designed bridge is 
usually at least moderately self-evident, while bad software isn't 
always...]

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