[napaparts]

It really depends. Anyone doing meaningful work will have hard time giving estimates. But churning up the next CRUD application with now special requirements can have no unknown variables. The question of course remains, why would anyone want to waste their time reinventing a spreadsheet.

[arter45]

>why would anyone want to waste their time reinventing a spreadsheet

I hope this is tongue in cheek, right? If not, here are some reasons:

1) spreadsheets embed "functions" via macros and macros are often flagged as malicious. Just combining native functions can get pretty complex.

2) in a spreadsheet, everybody sees the input, which is not always ideal

3) data types are controlled by users for the entire column or sheet, which can mess up formulas

I could probably think of additional reasons.

[napaparts]

You are correct, comparing making the next CRUD application to reinventing the spreadsheet was supposed to be a slightly humorous way to describe the repetitive and not too challenging part of writing business applications.

There also are people who use software to guide space rockets, cars, optimise calculation algorithms and more.

My guess is people with background mostly in CRUD don't get how everybody else messes up estimating so badly and people in the innovative task group find it hard to believe sane people would waste their time giving any estimates other than for technically irrelevant business reasons.