[Dominic Harr]

If you do believe him then you should take his estimate at face value and work with that.

If he isn't very familiar with Java, then his estimate at how long it would take in Java is suspect.

I have a lot of recent experience building *exactly* that type of tool, and I would think that *my* estimate might be a little more accurate.

But who knows? I could be wrong. I'm just giving you my best guess. You disagree with pretty much anything I say anyway, so I imagine that this discussion is moot?

[discostu]

But you know neither his java skill nor much about the program. His thumbnail outline hardly gave any indication of the depth of the program or complexity. So again lacking any knowledge to the contrary the only polite thing to do is accept is estimate as given.