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Tell them to use Excel then. You can do anything in Excel.  
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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I had a good laugh reading that! ^_^
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They probably want a fully functional "prototype" as well before signing the deal... 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I tell them that I need a set of requirements in order to estimate how long it will take, but that I don't do the cost thing.
They don't want to establish a set of requirements until they know how much it's going to cost them.
Reminds me of the time I wanted to borrow my mates book of Catch 22, but he wouldn't lend it to me until I lent him the film.
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"...I'm about to get all outlaw programmer on their collective asses.."
go on... I dare you 
Who is there to pick up the pieces?
Who the f*** is General Failure, and why is he reading my harddisk?
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You: How much does a thing cost?
Customer: What kind of thing?
You: Exactly
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I had a similar conversation once where I did eventually have to fall back on:
"You're looking at this like buying a car or a shirt. That's not quite how this works, you'd be better off looking at it like buying a concept car where you've come up with the concept: no one can know what you want out of it without details and without details you can't make an estimate of costs. I can go buck wild and give you a hover car for example where what you actually wanted was a transforming submersible one."
Apparently this sank in and we finally got the details.
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You could do a slight trick on them; You make up the specifications, and given those ones, you estimated that is should cost about x amount of money. But make sure to be clear that changing the spec could massively alter the cost, so if the project spends more than estimated you could just tell them why its their own fault for not reading the spec properly. 
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Nothing you said is funny, because that is how it's actually done.
Especially if it's a government contract.
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: They don't want to establish a set of requirements until they know how much it's going to cost them.
Total and complete insanity.
Idiot: Can you give us an cost estimate on doing something?
Developer: $4.2 billion
Idiot: That sounds high.
Developer: Well, I could shave some of the work off. Let's say $3.5 billion.
Idiot: Wow, that's a huge cost savings. Thanks. You've won the contract.
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Sounds horribly familiar. I worked as a defense contractor through most of the 80's, when men were men, women were women, and contractors were like high-priced 'professional ladies' outside the harbor on payday.
My dissatisfaction with it was on the other end. Every time I finished a project it went down a black hole. We'd put 10-15 man-years of work into a project, it would be run for a couple of weeks and then put on a shelf. We met the terms of the contract and the customer was satisfied, but it was still disappointing.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I worked for almost a year on a project (on a different contract), and I was about 98% done with it when they had a change of command, and the new guys's priorities and agenda were different from his predecessor. Bye-bye project.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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DoD[SOP]
Software Zen: delete this;
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One of the saddest sights I remember was when a project was canned shortly after deployment to production. When one of the developers expressed his disgust at the waste of a year of his work the manager said "Well you got paid didn't you". The developer decked him, the sad part, the developer was sacked.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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My last project as a defense contractor was a simulation. I had worked on it for over a year when the company laid off our group, then hired me back as a contractor to finish the project. I delivered the simulation, which was then delivered to the Air Force. It was never used.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Kind of a spoiler in the old title there young feller me lad! 
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Just met someone else who doesn't know what a globe is either. It's a small world.
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ok, so what rock have you been living under ?
(I know at least two definitions, depending on context ...)
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(it was a joke - globe... it's a small world... Get it?)
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Third rock from the sun of course... 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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No need to be so theatrical.
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It's just a stage he's going through.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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This is Golden 
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
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