Learning to Program

Create a Specification

A great approach for designing your software is to start with a detailed specification. The specification is a written explanation of what you are planning to build. When writing a specification, try to be as specific as possible without getting into implementation details. A specification should include such details as how to handle errors. For example, a specification for kittenbook would include something such as “If a user gives an invalid phone number, give them a second chance. If the phone number is still invalid, accept it and set the user’s location to somewhere.”

The specification (usually called the “spec”) can be either very detailed or merely a high-level description of your program. In either case, writing ...