[jesstaa]

Contractor is the wrong metaphor. They're building a house based on a plan already designed by an architect.

Software isn't the making of a thing, it's the designing of a thing.

Ask an architect how long it will take for them to design your dream home.

[ilaksh]

Architect designing home is the wrong metaphor.

Buildings do not have moving parts. Their core structures are almost all fundamentally the same. There are problems to solve, but again, not dynamic systems, and always variations on very well known themes.

Programming is usually like building a new type of interdimensional alien spacecraft engine that interfaces with some other alien artifacts. There are usually a lot of unknowns, new concepts, many moving parts, unsolved problems, to build a new invention.

[pillefitz]

Depends, really. Most software is doing basic CRUD and efforts can be estimated reasonably well. Some other software, like your example suggests, is literally rocket science. But even here estimates are typically not too far off.

[hannofcart]

> Programming is usually like building a new type of interdimensional alien spacecraft engine that interfaces with some other alien artifacts.

If programming indeed was "usually" like that, then there shouldn't be much software getting produced at all. Since building "a new type of interdimensional alien spacecraft engine" is something that's very very unusual, to say the least. :)

[Kinrany]

> Buildings do not have moving parts.

Of course they do: people, furniture, water, air, heat.