Estimation Glossary
Browse 6 estimation terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.
6 Estimation Terms
- Back of the Napkin
- Describing a rough estimate, sketch, or quick model done informally without much precision. In engineering slang, back-of-the-napkin work is useful for framing...
- Estimation
- The act of forecasting how much time, effort, complexity, or uncertainty a task or project involves. In software culture estimation is useful, but only if...
- Order of Magnitude
- A factor-of-ten difference used to express rough scale comparisons. In engineering estimation, saying something is 'an order of magnitude faster' means roughly...
- Sandbagging
- Deliberately understating capability or overstating difficulty, usually to create advantage or reduce expectations. In engineering slang, accusations of...
- Trivial Fix
- A supposedly small easy change, often described optimistically right before it turns out to touch three systems and two hidden assumptions. The phrase is...
- Uncertainty Estimation
- Techniques used to estimate how uncertain a model is about its outputs or predictions. Uncertainty estimation is useful for deciding when to escalate to...
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