What utilities are useful when designing software specifications?

Question

Hi All,

I was wondering if you know of any utilities for writing software specifications? Ideally a utility that allows one to define features, expectations, and relationships between various system functions.

I'm looking for something that can be presented to customers so I'm assuming it would be high level but easily translated into a low level workable map once writing real code.

Not sure if it's relevant, but the apps im working in/on are ruby/rails.

Answer 1

There are more utilities, tools, systems, frameworks, development environments and workbenches than it is possible to know of. You could start your researches at Wikipedia's article on Computer Aided Software Engineering.

As @Byron Whitlock has already observed, one place to start is with a word processor. A tool for drawing pictures is useful too.