Real Engineers don't give ETAs

Recently I had an interesting observation, followed up by a very interesting discussion with a few Engineers (on Skype obviously).

The initial observation is that - "Real Engineers don't give ETAs." ETA meaning estimated time of arrival, often used in project planning to describe the date on which a software release will happen.

Here's why Real Engineers don't give ETAs ---

• Real Engineers just get it done.
• Real Engineers think "Why waste time in calculating an ETA, when you can code in the same time?"
• Real Engineers JUST write code ...
• "Real Engineers aren't bothered about the time-line but the quality of their code ..."
• "ETAs are at times a good way for an engineer to communicate with a non-engineer :)"
• "(asking someone else to give the ETA) It allows the engineer to completely focus on solving the problem at hand without much distraction."
  

Real Engineers actually came up with yet-another-definition of ETA - "Estimated Time of Amnesia". That's the time when everybody (other than the Engineer) starts forgetting "what was actually promised" ... I would love to know your thoughts on this.

3 Steps to Adrenaline High

Here are my 3 steps of getting ‘Adrenaline High’ at 8AM; what are yours?

1. Pump Iron: 44lb on wrist curls, 105lb on pec-dec, gives me a high that no other drink can


2. Music: Linkin Park at 88 decibels, so I can’t hear anything else – gives me a high at 9:15AM


3. Keeping schedule to the minute: My morning schedule runs at a granularity of 1 minute, between 7:55 and 8:09AM there must be at lease a dozen things getting done. Getting things done ‘right’ at the 1-minute-granularity gives me a high (I think it has a name, it’s called ‘urgency syndrome’)