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A comment on Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a... by Raed667 on Sunday August 05, 2018 @03:03PM (#17692880)
For the second part, I dont think about it as you sold a month of work. You just agreed with a customer that this task is worth X amount of money. If you managed to do it in one hour, that's just good business.
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Re:Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a... by radicalbyte on Sunday August 05, 2018 @04:27PM (#17693356)
In this case you got lucky; other times you'll underestimate the amount of effort required. In the end it'll even out.
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Re:Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a... by scott-smith_us on Sunday August 05, 2018 @06:13PM (#17693844)
I still think they could have charged for less than the full month. The goodwill and trust that would have engendered would probably have been more than worth it in the long run.
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Re:Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a... by user5994461 on Sunday August 05, 2018 @08:01PM (#17694254)
Absolutely not. The client will either take you as shady or incompetent for being that much wrong in your estimate.
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Re:Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a... by r00fus on Monday August 06, 2018 @01:16AM (#17695232)
That's not ethical if it's a time&materials statement work agreement (because it's an estimate; if the actual work takes 10% over you bill that).

If it was a fixed-bid, then yeah it's completely fine. Though usually I'd say there should be a bit more time spent delivering some additional (canned) documentation and the like.

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Re:Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a... by maxxxxx on Sunday August 05, 2018 @06:51PM (#17694004)
That would require that you eat up the cost if something takes more time. Most of the time the customer will pay for the additional time or at least part of it.
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