Parametric Software Cost Estimation for the Solitary Programmer

Software cost estimation is known to be a challenging task at best, and these challenges are increased for programmers operating outside the support of an established team programming environment. While many software cost estimation models exist with varying levels of support, the nature of metrics collected for these models is seldom applicable to the solitary programmer. In addition, the workload associated with their collection and analysis is quite costly, leading to very limited adoption rates outside large organizations. In this paper, we propose a parametric software cost estimation model suitable for use by the solitary programmer. Our results suggest that such a model is practical to use and can be effective at estimating software development costs, when properly configured.