I agree. I find the thinking of developers here is all over the place due to the variety of types of work we're all doing. But some people take a hard-line approach to estimates based on the recommendation of others who are working in a totally different environment.
If you are in the consulting business and you refuse to give estimates, then you simply will miss out on a huge amount of opportunities. That's just reality. No amount of explaining your methodology is going to get you a large corporate contact if you can't provide a quote. If you have no interest in that type of work, then that's fine, but there are plenty of people who do make their living that way.
If you are on a product team, you may have an understanding business who realize the nature of programming. But you still have to work with the company so that press releases, support documentation, marketing, etc can get done. The sales and support teams may need training on features. So there is some degree of estimations that are still needed.
As far as other types of ground-breaking experimental research programming - I can't really speak on that subject as far as deadlines because I've never done that.
If you are in the consulting business and you refuse to give estimates, then you simply will miss out on a huge amount of opportunities. That's just reality. No amount of explaining your methodology is going to get you a large corporate contact if you can't provide a quote. If you have no interest in that type of work, then that's fine, but there are plenty of people who do make their living that way.
If you are on a product team, you may have an understanding business who realize the nature of programming. But you still have to work with the company so that press releases, support documentation, marketing, etc can get done. The sales and support teams may need training on features. So there is some degree of estimations that are still needed.
As far as other types of ground-breaking experimental research programming - I can't really speak on that subject as far as deadlines because I've never done that.