I wonder whether that's part of the spec, e.g., "must be able to open this specification." I also wonder how big the spec would be if cast in a formal notation - an order of magnitude larger?
The size of this spec and of other specs raises an interesting issue. The underlying model, going back to the early 70's, is that people writing the code will be given a specification that tells them exactly what code to write and, therefore, need to understand little or nothing of the application for which they are writing the code. - There was an earlier thread about having system analysts writing specifications that programmers. Would the specification be smaller if the assumption was that the programmers really did understand the application? Of course, in fairness to Microsoft, one needs to ask is this really one specification or is it a collection of specifications that can be understood in isolation - is it one novel or is it more like the Harry Potter series? Ruven Brooks -----Original Message----- From: Frank Wales [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 7:41 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: PPIG discuss: The Victorian Bookshelf I have heard weighty software specifications referred to as 'The Victorian Novel' (although future generations might understand 'Harry Potter 7' better). According to this article, the specification for Microsoft Office 2003 is somewhere in the vicinity of 150,000 pages long: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/75/microsoft.html Which raises the important question: is the specification for Office too big for Office to open? :-) -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
