Just to second a few other responses: (and brutally steal from jeffa =] )
client: I need you to write an xml parser that parses it into a hash.
buu: Sure, I'll just install xml::simple
client: You can't do that
buu: Sure thing, I'll just need an additional 6months to write a secure parser. You don't mind the project taking 6 months longer and costing that much more? Oh good.
Would that it could be that way, but it isn't. *sigh*
However, I do get to make decisions about how it's being worked the 'long way'. And if they come back in a week or so and say "we want to make this change", I get to tell them, "Well, I could do that, but you see, I had to do this to accomodate the last thing you changed. This will push the timeframe back (2*x)2", where "x" is the time it will acutally take me to do it, and the expression is the "estimated" cost to the timeline in double "x" in the next increment in time. Therefore, if it would take me 2 hours, I would "estimate" the impact on the work schedule at 4 days.
Feel free to use this formula anywhere useful. Yes, it's a "ShareWare Contractor Estimator". :)
Wow, that's even more conservitive than the estimator I usually use (that being the Scotty Method of doubling your estimates, knowing that the captain will always cut off a third anyway).
Better life through Star Trek!
---- I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
-- Schemer
: () { :|:& };:
Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated