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> There's no reason for getting vouched to be difficult. The primary thing Vouch prevents is low-effort drive-by contributions. For my projects (even this one), you can get vouched by simply introducing yourself in an issue and describing how you'd like to contribute.

This just requires one more prompt for your prose/code generator:

"Computer, introduce yourself like a normal human in an issue and wait to be vouched before opening pull request."

Comment · 8 months ago

If you don't think code generators are useful, that's fine.

I think code generators are useful, but that one of the trade-offs of using them is that it encourages people to anthropomorphize the software because they are also prose generators. I'm arguing that these two functions don't necessarily need to be bundled.

Comment · 8 months ago

Your agency lets you choose the words you use.

Comment · 8 months ago

Consider not anthropomorphizing software.

How about we stop calling things without agency agents?

Code generators are useful software. Perhaps we should unbundle them from prose generators.

Comment · 8 months ago

Comment · 9 months ago

It could be. How did the control group do?

Comment · 9 months ago

Then you know that it's going to take at least, say two weeks, one week for the first implementation and a week to finish it if it works.

On the high end, could it take more than 2 years? 1 year? 6 months? Stop when you are 80% confident that it won't take longer than some period.

So your estimate might be between two weeks and six months. Is that an acceptable estimate for the "buyer"? If not, is it worth expending effort to narrow the estimate?

Comment · 9 months ago

This why you should use confidence intervals for estimates. Use a 80% confidence interval, for example. 10% of the time, you should come in under the best case estimate. 10% of the time, it should take longer than the worst case estimate.

How do you know if your estimate is good? Would you rather bet on your estimate or on hitting one of 8 numbers on a 10-number roulette wheel? If you prefer one of the bets, adjust your estimates. If you're indifferent between the bets, the estimates accurately reflect your beliefs.

(The roulette wheel is from the book, How to Measure Anything by Hubbard. Confidence interval estimates are from LiquidPlanner, https://web.archive.org/web/20120508001704/http://www.liquid...)

Comment · 9 months ago

Is it going to take more than two hours?

Is it going to take more than two days?

Is it going to take more than two weeks?

Is it going to take more than two months?

Is it going to take more than two years?

If you can answer these questions, you can estimate using a confidence interval.

If the estimate is too wide, break it down into smaller chunks, and re-estimate.

If you can't break it down further, decide whether it's worth spending time to gather information needed to narrow the estimate or break it down. If not, scrap the project.

Comment · 10 months ago

It's like having Michael Jordan with dementia on your team. You start out mesmerized by how many points he can score, and then you get incredibly frustrated that he forgets he has to dribble and shoot into the correct hoop.