ABSTRACT
Old fellow pencil is still around, courting backs of envelopes. It simply does no longer log the mileage it once did. The bulk of the numbers, and the information of cost engineering is handled by a new-comer. The modern cost engineer takes to learning the intricacies of the new machine in order to operate the new tools of his trade. These tools are either general purpose in nature, or dedicated to the craft. Computer tools in the hands of the cost engineer changed the profession. The original idea of destimation has flourished in the new era, but not without a few bumps. Carried away by its original success, the destima-tion-based software was growing ever more complex. The decade of the 1980s came to an end with cost engineering-dedicated tools offering the basic capabilities offered by their ancestors in the 1970s.
