Typically, we try to steer away from just posting links to other blogs here at theJoyOfCode.com, unless the post is extra special.

Estimation is hard and developers can often feel under pressure during this process. If you pride yourself in giving realistic estimates that actually reflect how long something is going to take to get finished, then you need ammunition; there's always somebody who'll chip in "How long? I could write that in 20 minutes". And I'm sure they could, but it won't be finished in 20 minutes.

The formidable Jeff Atwood over on his excellent coding horror blog recently posted about the difference between a developer's best and worst case estimates: How Long Would It Take if Everything Went Wrong?.

This sounds like a great technique to pull excitable estimations back in line. I'll also be adding that book to my already gargantuan list of books to read.

PS - If estimation is your thing, be sure to check out our older post Project Gestation and Team Size.