A specification (often abbreviated as spec) is an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product, or service.
2
votes
1answer
104 views
Project implementation details in node.js
I am working as a software engineer turned team leader in a large software company. One of my areas of strength is node.js, and we are in the process of moving a lot of our services to separate ...
0
votes
3answers
114 views
What's a good license for a specification? [closed]
I'm not sure if this is the best place for this, but as a part of a project we are createing a software specification which partners may choose to implement with whatever code they like. We may also ...
4
votes
3answers
276 views
Customer Requirements Contains Equations that Cancel to Nothing
I have a project where the customer requirement specifies a report and contains mathematical equations for the contents of some of the columns on that report. One of the columns on this report is a ...
15
votes
6answers
933 views
Can you claim that your product is fit for purpose when it uses OSS software which does not guarantee it?
I am working on a product for a client that must be valid and fit for purpose.
It's built on a LAMP stack (PHP/Cake), so there's GPL, MIT, PHP, APACHE licenses:
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES ...
0
votes
2answers
296 views
Software Requirement Specification documentation by professionals
I just wanted to know what is the significance of SRS(Software Requirement Specification) in programming? and what are the techniques used in preparation of an SRS .. also who writes the SRS.. is it ...
2
votes
2answers
89 views
Requirement specifications with annotations?
I'm curoious if there are any templates using annotations such as ambigous, needs update and so on. Industrial or Academic does not matter.
If there are, are there any way tools available that use ...
9
votes
1answer
130 views
How to avoid duplication between my issue tracker and the project specification documents?
I used to work for a professional consulting firm, and we worked under many different contract terms. When we could get a time & materials project, we ran it with SCRUM and tracked the backlog in ...
4
votes
3answers
337 views
agile / scrum and functional specs
I work in a small team of four devs, one domain expert and one manager. We are looking to move to using scrum to try and formalise our processes.
From what I understand of agile, it seems to be ...
11
votes
2answers
295 views
Need interpretation of section in C# specification
I am reading the C# specification. I could use clarification on a segment:
C# has a unified type system. All C# types, including primitive types
such as int and double, inherit from a single ...
2
votes
2answers
513 views
Describing requirements in SRS - use cases?
I do not have the access to the IEEE standard and information on the net are contradictory. Can I capture user requirements in SRS using use cases? Or I should keep use cases separate as they are more ...
2
votes
1answer
149 views
How are “Json.org”-like specs graphs called and how can I generate them?
In http://www.json.org Douglas Crockford shows the specs of the JSON format in two interesting ways:
In the right side column he lists a text spec that looks like a YACC or LEX listing.
In the main ...
1
vote
2answers
74 views
standards for technical specificaton on software+hardware system [closed]
Are there any documented standards for technical specifications within the IT industry?
In theory, such a standard would be
successfully used in practice
deals with both software and hardware parts ...
0
votes
2answers
2k views
What is the difference between technical specifications and design documents?
What are technical specifications? Are they the same as design documents. If not, what is the difference and some examples?
2
votes
2answers
1k views
System requirement specification vs functional one - separate docs?
A lot of sources (e.g. Wikipedia) mentiones System requirement specification and Functional specification as two separate entities.
However, Wiegers in his book writes:
The software requirements ...
1
vote
2answers
217 views
Formalizing a requirements spec written in narrative English
I have a fairly technical functionality requirements spec, expressed in English prose, produced by my project manager. It is structured as a collection of UI tabs, where the requirements for each tab ...
6
votes
2answers
511 views
IEEE SRS documents: lightweight version when working with outside contractors?
Typically we follow an Agile development process that tends not to put an emphasis on writing requirements and technical documents that nobody will read. We tend to focus our limited manpower to ...
5
votes
5answers
553 views
Is a functional spec a part of the System requirement spec?
I wonder, sources like wikipedia or templates I found shows that Functional spec is a part of System requirement documents. I always thought that SRD is just overall decsription of the system, with ...
0
votes
1answer
60 views
Is there such a thing as a specification-code framework?
I've been googling for a while and can't fathom why this doesn't exist yet.
By a specification-code workflow I mean a system which links code to it's specification. For example I could be looking at ...
5
votes
2answers
528 views
Custom HTML Tags: Are there any specifications stating a standard way to handle them?
It seems like for years they've just been given default styling and inline display. Is there a spec somewhere that has dictated this? I've looked over the RFC's but I'm not particularly good with ...
4
votes
1answer
100 views
General solution to solve different sports results in different languages
I currently have some code that checks if squash and tennis scores are valid, both in javascript and PHP.
This results in 4 blocks of code existing, 2 languages * 2 sports, which does not scale well ...
2
votes
2answers
229 views
What is the process of planning software called? Or what is the job title of someone who does software planning?
For example, let's say a non-technical person comes to me with their rough initial specification. And I sit down with them over a couple weeks and help them hone, formalize and better plan the ...
2
votes
5answers
287 views
bug: deviation from requirements vs deviation from expectations
I am not clear on this one. No matter the terminology, in the end the software fault/bug causes (according to a lot of sources):
Deviation from requirements
Devation from expectations
But if ...
15
votes
9answers
657 views
How to convince a non-technical client that their application spec needs to be simplified?
Often times I am faced with the situation where a new client comes to me with an application that has literally 100s of unnecessary features and it is quite clear that things need to be drastically ...
-2
votes
3answers
328 views
Does *every* project benefit from written specifications? [closed]
I know this is holy war territory, so please read the question to the end before answering.
There are many cases where written specifications make a lot of sense. For example, if you're a contractor ...
1
vote
2answers
134 views
Estimating time for planning and technical design using Evidence Based Scheduling
I'm at the beginning of a development project in a large organization.
The Functional Requirements are currently being worked out and documented with our business stakeholders by our Enterprise ...
19
votes
7answers
773 views
How can a non-technical person learn to write a spec for small projects?
How can a non-technical person learn to write specs for small projects?
A friend of mine is trying to outsource some development on a statistics project.
In particular, he does a lot of work in ...
1
vote
1answer
383 views
ISTQB terminology question (Defect)
According to ISTQB (and few more sources + wiki ), a defect/bug is the actual cause of error in software, e.g. incorrect statement, logical or semantic error. The actual definion is: a flaw in the ...
0
votes
3answers
93 views
What do you need from a client to create a site
I am trying to figure out what a programmers needs from a client to create a website. This is a complicated database driven site. How should the information look? Should I layout the pages in ...
4
votes
3answers
392 views
How To Document an Object Oriented Design in Text
For my next project, I'm looking to document my Object Oriented design in simple text before jumping the gun to code it up. I want to do this for two reasons.
I want to give proper thought to my ...
17
votes
1answer
1k views
Java: “Heap pollution”
A "Heap Pollution" as in Non-Reifiable Types (The Java™ Tutorials > Learning the Java Language > Generics (Updated))
Why is it called that way?
2
votes
1answer
103 views
When to skip solving the general problem and settling for the specific problem?
I've been working hard on trying to develop a general solution to my problem, but I cannot seem to formulate a proper algorithm for it, at least one that doesn't take a ton of inaccurate grunt work ...
37
votes
4answers
4k views
Experience of Python's “PEP-302 New Import Hooks”
I'm one of the developers of Ruby (CRuby). We are working on Ruby 2.0 release (planned to release 2012/Feb).
Python has "PEP302: New Import Hooks" (2003):
This PEP proposes to add a new set of ...
-2
votes
3answers
675 views
Private Wiki vs Google Doc to share specifications for a team?
My team is debating whether to put the specifications on a private wiki or in a google document.
Can someone provide me with a summarized list of pros/cons for using a private wiki vs google docs ...
2
votes
1answer
145 views
Should I provide a language reference in addition to a formal specification for the programming language I am designing?
I am designing a programming language, and I would like to provide a complete documentation for it.
So far, I have planned to write the following documents:
An initial design outline, mostly as a ...
2
votes
0answers
54 views
New website - best practice for requirements specs? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Extracting user requirements from a person who does not know how to express himself
As a hobby freelancer I'm new to this. I've never had a non-technical client before ...
4
votes
1answer
163 views
What is an effective way to organize tasks for a new project?
Is there a practical solution to organizing the initial tasks for a new project?
To elaborate, imagine the features/stories/goals are laid out for a project. How might one go about organizing those ...
4
votes
1answer
56 views
Tooling and support for message format specifications
How do most companies define and manage message format specifications? Is it common for companies to create custom tools for creating and working with these documents?
At work we have a lot of ...
0
votes
3answers
261 views
How to write Requirements for a specific module
I am familiar with writing Software Requirements Specification, but not quite sure how to write the requirements for a specific module.
Let's say I need to develop a Reservation System and there ...
0
votes
0answers
120 views
Are there any good resources to learn how to write tech specs/design documents [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Writing a Software Requirement Specification
How to make a great functional specification
I am starting to write more tech specs and design documents. However, I don't ...
5
votes
5answers
473 views
Interesting questions about Behaviour-Driven Development
For my master thesis at Software Engineering, I want to investigate in the new development technique BDD (Behaviour-Driven Development). In my opinion this technique could really improve on customer ...
0
votes
3answers
438 views
How do I write a specification? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
how do I write a functional specification quickly and efficiently
With so many projects changing halfway - and clients assuming much can be changed at no additional cost ...
30
votes
5answers
7k views
Two HTML elements with same id attribute: How bad is it really?
Just browsing the google maps source code. In their header, they have 2 divs with id="search" one contains the other, and also has jstrack="1" attribute. There is a form separating them like so:
...
58
votes
9answers
12k views
What is the difference between requirements and specifications?
I've been tasked with developing requirements and specifications for a project our group is starting.
I realized that I don't know the difference; a Google search just confused me more -- it seems ...
5
votes
5answers
176 views
The value of an updated specification
I'm at the tail end of a large project (around 5 months of my time, > 60,000 lines of code) on which I was the only developer. The specification documents for the project were designed well early on, ...
5
votes
3answers
359 views
Are there standard practices when writing a spec for a software development project?
Are there standard practices when writing a spec for a software development project? Is there a specific format to follow? Also, does the developer or the client write this up? If the dev, is this ...
6
votes
4answers
283 views
Why it is important to include definition of success/failure in specification?
I've read Steve McConnell's "Code Complete" and one of items in checklist for requirements is: "Is the definition of success included? Of failure?".
Why is this important? Can you write any examples ...
18
votes
3answers
2k views
Why are exception specifications bad?
Back in school some 10+ years ago, they were teaching you to use exception specifiers. Since my background is as one of them Torvaldish C programmers who stubbornly avoids C++ unless forced to, I only ...
5
votes
3answers
292 views
How can we verify that software meets specifications meets requirements?
So we're pretty good at eliciting requirements from our end customers, business division and sales/marketing. We plan projects to add/enhance features to meet those requests and prioritize tasks to ...
5
votes
3answers
5k views
Where can I find examples of functional specifications?
I am writing a functional specification for a software program (Mac OS X application to be exact). I want to improve this by looking at other (good) functional specifications, but I cannot find any.
...
3
votes
4answers
406 views
Who should be responsible for writing/updating design specifications in an agile team
I work as part of a scrum-like Agile team and a while ago, one thing we identified that the team should do is maintain good set of design documents for our code base. Because we are agile and do have ...
