I have just finished reading what was added here after my first post and feel like I have to chime in.
It has been my experience that clients (and bosses in the employer-employee situation) do not want to pay the extra price that documentation and project management, version control can add to a project.
When I estimate something I give the full blown number, with documentation and project management included. Without an exception it always comes down to "That much? Isn't there any way you can do it for less???" or "That long, isn't there a way you can get it done quicker??".
Clients and employers do not seem to believe that there are jobs that actually take longer than 2 weeks to complete.
The first thing thrown out is documentation. Properly documenting code can/will dramatically increase the time of developement unless you happen to have a full library of all the modules that you will need to complete the job.
Project management and versioning is the next thing thrown out. It is not needed to get the job done (It could be argued that it is needed to get the job done properly but that is a different story).
I generally end up programming by the seat of my pants. Screw modular, my clients just want it to work.
I pride myself on writing very readable code (I call it kindergarten code) and given enough time to do it properly it is compact and modular and documented but in the real world that is usually not the case.
In the real world it is spaghettied (sp?) out and rambles on. You rarely get beyond cut 1 because the client wants to move forward. The code works, that is all they care about. They do not want to pay for clean up, they do not want to pay for the time it takes to do something properly.
So you fly by the seat of the pants and hope that you don't crash and burn.
Just my
