Coding, Fast and Slow: Developers and the Psychology of Overconfidence
What goes on inside a developer’s head when they make estimates, and why that’s so hard to fix
The article focuses on why developers are bad at estimating and how this affects development. The author argues that one of the main reasons is that writing software involves figuring out something in such precise detail that it can be communicated to a computer. Still, often there are hidden problems in the parts that are not fully understood. These hidden problems can lead to unexpected complications that can take one day to one year to resolve.
The author also highlights the issue of overconfidence, referencing the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, which explains how experts’ predictions about future events are often unreliable and meaningless. Despite this, experts tend to be highly confident in the accuracy of their predictions, and nothing seems to be able to diminish this confidence. The author suggests that understanding these problems can help developers recognize them and take steps to overcome them to make more accurate estimates.
The article is “Coding, Fast, and Slow: Developers and the Psychology of Overconfidence.”