[dognotdog]

I guess it's time to stop calling engineering estimates an "opinion!"

But yeah, I see the same thing all the time. We say "this isn't going to work unless we do X,Y,Z," which of course aren't done, and then of course things don't work out, and it's our fault. I blame it on a lack of intuitive understanding (and pressure to cut costs, resulting in a RDF).

Most people would understand that a bridge won't hold if you left out all the rebar from the structure, even if it wasn't visible from the outside. With software, though, people's eyes just go blank at some point, and they simply ignore everything and piece together what they want to hear. "X dollars in Y days, got it."

[Fr0styMatt8]

You phrased that way better than I did. That's exactly the kind of thing I was talking about.