What Should Specifications Contain?
The contents of each type of specification are naturally very different. However, the information in any specification must be:
- Correct
This might seem obvious, but it is absolutely vital. An incorrect specification can cause days of wasted effort. It must be kept up to date or it will become dangerously misleading: It will waste readers’ time, cause confusion, and may lead to bugs being introduced as a consequence.
If a specification can be interpreted in more than one way, then the “specification” isn’t specific—it’s not doing its job. Two readers could make different interpretations of the ambiguous information, with inevitable unfortunate consequences. Make sure that your specifications can only be interpreted ...
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