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This seems to me to be estimating the cost to get from a fixed spec to "works on my machine (or simulator)" rather than the total cost to go from an idea to shi
by ylg 11y ago
This seems to me to be estimating the cost to get from a fixed spec to "works on my machine (or simulator)" rather than the total cost to go from an idea to shipped product with non-technical stakeholders (whom your estimator is targeting), a diverse product team, changing understanding of the target, i.e., all the bits that investors struggle to understand seem to be omitted or minimized.
I've found in many years of building apps for clients, the easy part is forecasting simple programming costs. The hard part is helping folks understand time spent keying in code is only a small part of shipping successful software--and one of the more predictable ones. So, the cynic in me reacts with: "great, another over-simplification that instills more of those unreal expectations that so often cause failure."
Minor points worth reiterating from others:
* The rates are off for areas other than yours (how about making rates/regions an option?). And, I'd make it much clearer that the viewer is likely looking at offshore outsourcing pricing as that is a very, shall we say, unique approach to new product development.
* "Man" hours is a small, visual irritant due to the problematic gender relations and inequities in our field at the moment.
- dynjo 11y agoYou can plug in your own rates at the bottom :-) just click "Show Details" Man hours will be changed to something much more gender non-specific once traffic calms a bit, good spot. We have many female developers and none pointed it out! :-)
- ylg 11y agoPlugging in rates would seem to be more applicable to me (a professional in the field) than to the target audience (people who don't know about app development.) Maybe for the audience I think you're targeting: a few big buttons with labels such as "Thailand", "USA", "Western Europe", "Russia", "San Franspesive" and so on?
- s73v3r 11y agoI can totally see a potential client pointing to this site when they hear my quote, except they've put the hourly rate at like $10.
- amichal 11y ago> You can plug in your own rates at the bottom :-) just click "Show Details" Didn't see that and it helps. Still i think the parent comment is important. If what you selling is just UI design and coding hours then you are not selling a completed app. Working with the client to go from a napkin sketch or idea to a shipped product involves a lot more work. Perhaps you could update the footnote at the bottom of the page about hosting costs etc to also mention the costs of requirements gathering and shipping. Nearly all of my past clients assume these costs are marginal at most if they think of them at all. Some of the more naive ones have assumed that ongoing support and training was somehow magicly included for free.
- dynjo 11y agoYep, see your point, though the more detail you add the less accessible the tool is to at least give rough ideas of cost. Some people have crazy ideas of how much it costs to build apps. We had a customer this week who wanted a Kickstarter clone in 3 weeks! :-)
- williamcotton 11y ago"Man hours" is a great sounding phrase. It sounds way better than "person hours". "Person hours" just doesn't flow as well. People aren't going to write song lyrics with the phrase "person hours" in them. How about an acronym, like "thips", totals hours in persons. Throw a poet a bone.
- robmcm 11y agoHow about work hours, programming hours, developer hours, or perhaps even just simply hours? Could in theory be done by a really talented member of anothery species.
- yareally 11y ago> Could in theory be done by a really talented member of anothery species Not sure we'll reach the point of highly intelligent, tool making chimps and New Caledonian crows writing their own applications. "Murderable" (of crows) hours would lead to some humorous situations though.
- robmcm 11y agoObviously not programming, but perhaps the visual design [1] ;) [1] http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/12-artsy-animals-that-paint/portrait-of-an-artist http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/12-artsy-ani...
- s73v3r 11y ago"Hours" implies that it's all linear; that one task can't go until the previous is done. "Man Hours" indicates that it's the amount of time needed to complete the task, but isn't solely dependent on linear ordering
- kriro 11y agoI consider "man hour" a terminus technicus and wouldn't change it personally. It's only an estimation tool and fine due to that but the term is problematic due to other reasons (mystical man month). If you feel like you offend someone I think "billable hours" is what fits best (might sound too much like a lawyer though). Person hour et al. sound pretty strange.
- gmu3 11y agoIf it's changed, won't you have to convert all the numbers too?
- hyperhopper 11y ago"Man hours" is not a visual irritant. It is not saying that only men can do work. It is not a statement on gender. It is the most common and easiest to understand way to express an idea. You are being overly pedantic and rabble-rousing for no good reason.
- numbsafari 11y agoThere are plenty of other, worthwhile terms like "Billable Hours", "Person Hours" that are present in many existing contracts. You're being mentally lazy for no good reason.
- snowwrestler 11y agoThe essence of privilege is to define and defend a limited default. There is no reason to defend "man hours"; it is less accurate than "person hours" and only slightly longer.
- npizzolato 11y agoUntil those who don't recognise themselves as persons take offense to the obviously bigoted phrase "person hours." This whole argument reeks of fishing for things to be offended by. Any systematic problems women face in the tech industry are certainly not caused by something so insignificant as the use of the phrase "man hours."
- jhurliman 11y agoIt's not a cause, but a contributing factor
- x1024 11y agoHoly shit, this entire comment chain is cancer. Literally nobody commented on the actual content of the OP.
- snowwrestler 11y agoThe idea that someone must be "fishing for things to be offended by" starts from the assumption that this is not a thing that would legitimately offend anyone. That's what I mean by defining the default. The default, in your point of view, is the word "man," so therefore anyone who objects to that must be "different" in some way: overly sensitive, manipulative, deficient, etc. When in reality, "man" is the default because men made it the default. That doesn't mean that it has to remain the default. I'm not suggesting that we go back and edit Neil Armstrong's words--they were of their time and are amazing. I'm suggesting that we're in a different time now, and starting now, it is within our power to choose the words we use. The idea is to recognize the history and context of language, not assign all problems to one word. No single drop thinks it is responsible for the flood, etc.
- ianstallings 11y agoYou're using the wrong definition for man to qualify your visual irritant. Man in this case means "human, person". If I say this will help all mankind, I'm not excluding a gender. You simply misunderstood.
- chrisdevereux 11y agoLanguage is about more than sematics...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ianstallings 11y agoSorry I wasn't trying to be flippant or dismissive. I really am trying to point out a simple miscommunication. If the word truly offended someone I worked with I would substitute it for something else. I don't even like the term to be honest. Never have.
- chrisdevereux 11y agoOh, I wasn't really objecting to the content of what you said there... It's open for debate whether or not there's a better expression than "man hours". I just wanted to point out that said debate would hinge on more than a narrowly semantic question about the meaning of "man".
- mc32 11y agoThey can use worker hours, labor hours, etc. However, it's true that criticizing man hours is not understanding language or etymology. We could go on with things like cowboy and cowgirl. Why do we call adults boys and girls? On the other hand, they are just terms. Just like husband really isn't interpreted as "house bound". Bound, tied to a house, i.e. not free. But... people being people we see others getting in trouble when son misunderstand etymology and meaning like when people use synonyms for frugality and people find offense. There will doubtlessly be other words which fall into disfavor for looking or sounding too much like a scoundrel word.
- dynjo 11y ago'man days' has now been banished from the site :-) In our defence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-hour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-hour