I must be a bit dense today, what irony?

Big software/systems projects being notoriously difficult to estimate and manage, cost overruns the norm, etc.

I assume he's referring to platform lock-in ala Microsoft Office, AWS, Oracle, or Apple's walled garden driving future decisions. So the first software decision is a down payment until your technical debt hole is so big you can't do anything but throw money down it.

Huh? No, I think he's referring to large scale software projects costs being high, and such projects being often late or even failing.

ha, i did not see this comment before posting mine, but the irony was not lost on me.

or rather, is it even ironic? it seems totally germane to a forum full of geeks with a wide spectrum of interests, many (most?) of whom are software devs.

It is lost on me.

What do high construction costs have to do with HN?

As ams6110 wrote above, it's ironic to have an article criticizing the high costs of construction projects on a developer website -- given that large software project costs are the same or worse.

It's like having a post about how ecologically unfriendly the fast food industry is on Exxon's website.

The title itself is deficient -- this isn't an article about general construction costs, it's specifically about rail transit construction.

inability to predict the time and effort needed