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id, title, tags, daily
| id | title | tags | daily | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-29T20:25:22-0400 | 2026-04-29 20:25:22 |
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2026-04-29 |
2026-04-29 20:25:22
Heterodox Construction Estimating
As a lifelong pedant, hater, contrarian, etc. when I first heard of heterodoxy as applied to highly-opinionated professional disciplines I thought immediately of my own highly-opinionated discipline in construction-estimating.
The existence of a heterodoxy requires that of an orthodoxy, and I believe holt_2023_estimating is typical of it. Construction estimating is simply finding the optimal price for a service, a process necessary of all service industries, frequently stated to be more art than science. Orthodox estimators may parrot the same refrain, but their own process is neither art nor science. It's much more like doing taxes: prolonged, tedious, opaque, over-complicated, and ultimately resulting in a value that no one is satisfied with, but that they have no basis to question.
Also like taxes, orthodox estimating methods are assumed obligatory, but you can actually do whatever you want. It's a free country, man.