[panarky]

That quiz has an unintentionally apt question.

> Total length of the coastline of the Pacific Ocean

Coastlines are fractal. If your measuring stick is 1 km long, you'll get one number. If it's 1 m long, you'll get a much larger result. And if it's 1 cm long, you'll get an even larger result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox

The actual length of a coastline is infinite when measured with an infinitesimally small measuring stick.

Software development effort also increases, unbounded, as discovery proceeds and the precision of requirements increases.

[polygotdomain]

>The actual length of a coastline is infinite when measured with an infinitesimally small measuring stick.

>In actuality, the concept of an infinite fractal is not applicable to a coastline; as progressively more accurate measurement devices are used

The notion of the length of the coastline, and why I think the question is apt as well, is that regardless of the fractal paradox, the practical answer is that there is an answer that is accurate enough to satisfy the business's or the customer's needs.

The analog for software projects, from my point of view, is scope, and it's generally one of the biggest problems with projects that take too long. Product and various stakeholders take outline broad, high-level scope requirements that may or may not actually be informed by the realities of building or delivering that piece of software. They generally kick the can down the road and take a "I'll know it when I see it" type approach that winds up drastically changing things at some arbitrary point later on on the project.

A rough measuring stick for scope always means that the answer will be longer, however, small measuring sticks for scope are absolutely impractical. What's needed is the understanding from the business that refining scope increases development time, and the high-level broad scope that is sufficient at the beginning of the project is not sufficient at the end. Many businesses want to run with the assumption that their broad scope and the estimates that go with them are accurate enough to bring a product to market.

[gizmo686]

The practical answer is that the question is ill posed, and you need to clarify what is actually being asked. A reasonable way to answer the question as asked would be to model the coastline as a fractal, which would give you an estimated length of infinity. What is needed is not a better way of estimating the answer to the question as asked, because the answer to that question is not useful. Instead, what is needed is a better question (which would require knowledge of why the question is being asked).