This is all just to say that app-making is nothing like building a house. It’s more like building the first house ever in the history of houses, with a pile of rusty nails and your bare hands, in a non-stop tornado.

Brent Simmons’ article here is focused on the struggle around ETAs. As someone who writes code for money, boy do I feel his pain. It’s incredibly hard to give accurate estimates for how long something will take to make, and Simmons’ postscript at the end (quoted above) expresses why.

I’m pretty sure every developer has used the “it’s like building a house” metaphor to try and explain what they do. I know I have. From now on I’m going to add that caveat: “It’s more like building the first house ever in the history of houses.” As developers, we’re always figuring it all out again, every time we start something.

via Daring Fireball