Equal hash means equal file, unless someone malicious is messing around with your files and injecting collisions. (this could be the case if they are downloading stuff from the internet) If that is the case go for a SHA2 based function. There are no accidental MD5 collisions, 1,47×10-29 is a really really really small number. … Read more
From my experience, 25% effort is spent on Analysis; 50% for Design, Development and Unit Test; remaining 25% for testing. Most projects will fit within a +/-10% variance of this rule of thumb depending on the nature of the project, knowledge of resources, quality of inputs & outputs, etc. One can add a project management … Read more
Here’s the fundamental question. When will the client think they’re done? If they think they’ll be done by June, then you put an Agile team in place. That’s 4-6 people for 6 months. That’s the budget. Essentially, you do the multiplication for them. team * rate * 6 months. If they think they’ll be mostly … Read more
An exponential moving average is great for this. It provides a way to smooth your average so that each time you add a new sample the older samples become decreasingly important to the overall average. They are still considered, but their importance drops off exponentially–hence the name. And since it’s a “moving” average, you only … Read more
Hofstadter’s Law: Any computing project will take twice as long as you think it will — even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
The best answer you can give is to ask for time to knock up a quick prototype to allow you to give a more accurate estimate. Without some experience with a tool or a problem, any estimate you give is essentially meaningless. As an aside, there is very rarely a problem with giving too long … Read more