Hi Kohei,
There are mainly two complaints I have with the current specification
project:
1) It asks for way too many details, especially in the UI design
section. It's not too bad if the feature involves only one
control/widget change. But once the change involves three or more
dialogs, with each dialog having an average of 7 to 8 controls, it
starts to become a real pain in the rear, aside from the fact that the
Basic runs and errors everytime I change the value of that combo box
(ok, I'll stop complaining about this because I think I've already got
my point across to the right person :-).
Without details a new feature isn't clear.
An example you want to design a new car. One important thing are the
tires. You said the development team you need a tire for your new car.
In you mind you know all details you need at the tires - height, width,
rim, how many bots etc. Without writing this into a specification, the
other team do not know, what you need and where it is good for.
The specification template is should a support to do not forget
something in a dialog. And there are many things you can forget, when
you have to work platform independent and language independent.
2) The target audience is not very clear. Thanks to this thread,
though, now I'm beginning to see who the specification documents are
intended for (mostly for QA, right?). But without knowing who will
actually read my specification and how my spec will get used, I'd have
hard time setting the right level of granularity so that I can do
absolutely minimal but still make my spec document useful for someone.
The specifications are for the developers, the quality assurance and the
documentation team.
- without a specification the developers doesn't know what has to be
implement
- without a specification the QA member doesn't know what has to be
check/text
- without a specification the writer for online help doesn't know what
has to be written
Call me lazy, but when I'm writing a spec, I don't feel productive, so
I just want to get it over with as quickly as possible. Aside from
the fact that, when I'm trying to write a spec late at night after my
kids are asleep, my motivation meter begins to fall rapidly, and my
typing speed begins to crawl. ;-)
I know that. Documentation isn't my favorite job too. But it has to be
done, that my boss or my team know all important things. It's the same,
as to write specifications. You write down all the things, you have to
communicate, that all teams around you (and the users) know how your
implementation works.
But doesn't an externally contributed feature come pretty much when
it's complete (or nearly so)? If so, then a spec is written after the
fact, which means the spec can be easily retrofitted to be "in sync
with the code". In this scenario, a spec cannot be used to verify the
implementation, because the implementation is done first. You can do
the opposite, perhaps, to verify the spec against the implementation.
I did that for my first specification (natural sort), and I'll
probably do it for my second spec (solver), too.
So, my workflow seems different from yours, which itself may be a
problem when being involved in this project. But that's how I write
my code in my free time.
I learned at my study. Before implementation draw flow charts, write
down all dependencies, make small specifications for any action you want
to implement. That will reduce the re-work costs. What I did was to
write first the code and create then the flow charts. The dependencies I
found, because my code fails in the first implementation.
I learned that it takes more time, to implement first the code and write
down the specification afterwards. But the coding was more funny and I
didn't changed my handling at my study.
Now I am at a company and learned, that re-work costs are really costs
money and is very annoying for the users. Therefore I am now a fan of
the processes which are taught at study.
Thorsten
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