[rhizome]

>I feel as you should be able to provide an estimate even if it something that you have not completely done before. One should spend some time to gauge how much of this new thing is really "new" and what parts should be easy to figure out. Then, try to look at resources about those unknown parts, and that should allow to provide a rough estimate.

This isn't personal, just a comment on a way of thinking that is not uncommon: each of those sentences are insane and not based in reality. You may "feel" these things are possible, but that's about as far as it goes. "Just look up all the unknown stuff." OK.

[xmprt]

I wish people were more comfortable saying "I don't know but I can do some research and get back to you later." Often times that's where the conversation about time estimates ends because they don't ask you again unless it's actually important. And if they do ask you, now you have a better answer (assuming you actually looked into the problem you're trying to solve).

The other problem with time estimates that I find is that even though I might know for sure that a certain feature will take only a day or two, I can't tell when it'll be done because I usually have other things to work on as well.