TL:DR: Estimations waste time. Design well, derisk early, ship small, and invest in quality.

I rarely have definite opinions about anything, but, if a genie granted me three wishes, my first would be to make everyone on Earth forget about software estimates. My second and third wishes would be the same!

Software estimates suck, here are a few symptoms why:

While software engineering is one of the youngest branch of engineering (~60 years), it comes with its set of laws coined by engineers, scientists, economists, or psychologists, and based on facts gathered over time.

In this blog post, I am listing some software engineering laws I got exposed to over the years. I chose the ones I keep referencing regularly in software engineering discussions. I’m also giving pointers on how one can take them into account on a daily basis.

Opening easily to review pull requests, giving relevant feedback, or responding to feedback is hard. It requires a good mix of soft and hard skills, which are often overlooked.

Like any activity, practice makes perfect, and anyone can become better at it.