Today we had to do some estimates for potentially caching a large number of objects in memory, using some quick calculations (or Back of the Envelope) calculations, we quickly calculated a very big number, indicating we would immediately need to start considering alternative implementations.
Further analysis was needed and later it was confirmed that initial estimates were pretty close to the mark.
It reminded me of a good book that is probably not on alot of programmer's reading list. Programming Pearls is an old style book of computer science articles from the 80's. Column 7 about "Back of the Envelope" estimation, using very rough order of magnitude guesses to arrive at an approximate value for an amount, or response time. I originally read this from following some of the references from Code Complete. It is an Addison-Wesley book, but not available on safari 
, which is exactly the sort of book that should be provided
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.