LC 8 hard question...

[Peter M. Brigham]

On Feb 29, 2016, at 12:45 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

> Back in September I predicted that LC 8 might reach RC1 in March.  I've read no specific time estimates from the team, but given the good progress on a wide range of areas I'd guess that RC1 would likely occur no later than April, and would feel reasonably comfortable* guessing that a July estimate for Stable would seem achievable.
> 
> 
> * Any projection of ship dates from any one about any software is, ultimately, a form of guesswork.  We have 50 years of ACM literature to back that up, and insightful authors from Fred Brooks to Steven McConnell to explain why this unpredictability persists.  Until when a system ships can we know the ship date.  Prior to that the inevitable unpredictable things that define our universe and the software development tasks we do within it will come into play.  I always try to keep this in mind with all software from all vendors.

Two principles that apply universally to predicting a stable software release date:

The first 90% of the task takes 90% of the time, and the last 10% takes the other 90% of the time.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

-- Peter

Peter M. Brigham
pmbrig at gmail.com
http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig