"Can Software Schedules Be Estimated?" (via Slashdot)

[russotto]

Heck, programmers have known this for a long time. We just pull a number out of the air and double it. Our manager then doubles that, his manager cuts it by 10%, the manager above him sets a deadline date completely unrelated to the estimate, and all the paperwork is fulfilled.

I've always thought the impossibility of an estimate was related to a theorem besides Goedels, though -- basically, I think the difficulty of doing an estimate is no less than the difficulty of doing the job in the first place.

added later

I just checked out the link. Turns out he does address my objection, and agrees with it, with respect to "program correctness".

Since the specification fully specifies the behavior of the program, the complexity
(C) of the specification must be at least approximately as large as the complexity of a minimal program for the task at hand.

This is something I've been saying since I learned of (and started doing) proofs of correctness as a freshman in college. Ahh, 'tis good to be vindicated. I don't suppose the Software Engineering Institute is likely to say "sorry we wasted your time" and close up shop because of this paper, though....