I need to provide some fairly complex functional specifications to my development team. I could use Visio, Word, or similar. However, I am also aware of products like LucidSpec that are built specifically for that task. What does your organization use to develop specs? Do you have any experience with LucidSpec or similar software? Doe...
I find myself using the Open Group's base specifications quite a bit when I work. Using them online is fine, but I'd like to have a printed version. I found the site here, but the site says a printed version is unavailable. The html version is freely available, but the PDF requires paying a 4 figure membership fee, which I'm not able to...
I've just had a new project land on my desk which is more than a little bit beyond me, so I'll be delegating it to a colleague. However, I don't want to be the nightmare user with the forever changing specs; so what is my best way to plan and spec out the application that needs to be developed? Are there template spec documents out ther...
I've seen a few questions around here saying that there's no need to write a beefy Technical Specification if the Functional Specification has all of the functionality. What about situations where the client has provided a Functional Specification and you need to turn around a Technical Specification from that document? I understand tha...
What metrics to use and how to make calculations if writing specification for a new programming project is worth doing it and spending time (and money)? ...
Is there a max length for class/method/variable names in Java? the JLS doesn't seem to mention that. I know very long names are problematic anyway from code readability and maintainability perspective, but just out of curiosity is there a limitation (I guess class names might be limited by the file system maximal file name limitation). ...
Why wasn't the .clone() method specified in the java.lang.Cloneable interface ? ...
Why wasn't the java.lang.Object class declared to be abstract ? Surely for an Object to be useful it needs added state or behaviour, an Object class is an abstraction, and as such it should have been declared abstract ... why did they choose not to ? ...
We develop an enterprise application for which we need to document the minimum hardware requirements for the following target deployments: Thick-client Database/application server (where we run several server side processes that need access to the database and a file server, which is often the same machine) Web server Some of the ide...
I'm working now on an API for developers feature of our product. The first version was released and it has small number of users at the moment. Since I started to develop its second version, some parts were reworked, some parts were removed to make the API more elegant and clear. But the 2nd version deployment can be a pain for old ver...
I'm considering implementing one or two JSR APIs. I have not yet read the entire specification (the plan is to read them as I code the implementation) but I am very familiar with them. I have read that the JSR process includes implementing a Test Compatibility Kit (TCK) for testing said JSR implementations. Before I start writing a bunc...
Is there any formal restriction as to which characters are allowed in URL parameter names? I've been reading RFC3986 ("Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax") but came to no definitive conclusion. I know there are practical limitations, but would it actually be forbidden to do something like: param with\funny<chars>=some_v...
Consider this scenario. I have my own website, that I use as my identifier, but I use a third-party OpenID provider (in my case yahoo), as described here, to login on Relying Party (RP) websites such stackoverflow and sourceforge. It seemed to be a wise move: I am not locked in with an OpenID provider, since if/when yahoo will not of...
I've been googling like mad and can't find any file format specifications for mjpeg. What should the header look like? Do i just append a series of jpegs after the header? I know it's the usually in the .avi container, does that have a standardized format for codecs that might be in it? The goal is to make it in actionscript 3, but...
As I'm starting to develop for the web, I'm noticing that having a document between the client and myself that clearly lays out what they want would be very helpful for both parties. After reading some of Joel's advice, doing anything without a spec is a headache, unless of course your billing hourly ;) In those that have had experienc...
Whereever I have looked, the functional specifcations are some sort of documents with the requirements/proposed features represented and elaborated. I was recently in a position to make a standard template for our company for functional specifications. The format I have settled for, tentatively, is an excel file with a quite a bit of aut...
How do you cope with that? Is it normal to allow the costumer to change the software as often as he wants? I´m working in a environment where there are no specs and constant requests for changes. For every new costumer we have to create a new branch and makes so many changes that by the time I finish I have a complete different produ...
In my team we've got a great source control system and we have great specs. The problem I'd like to solve is how to keep the specs up-to-date with the code. Over time the specs tend to age and become out of date The folks making the specs tend to dislike source control and the programmers tend to dislike sharepoint. I'd love to hear...
I am a new, but huge fan, of the BDD approach to software development and "specification". I have been making use of xUnit.NET, Moq, and an extension to xUnit.NET that allows me to perform BDD-style testing (I'm using testing loosely, as its not really so much testing as it is specifying expected behavior). Currently, I run all my tests ...
(Not to be confused with Xunit, a popular .Net unit testing library.) Today in a fit of boredom I started inspecting Gmails dom (yes, I was very bored). Everything looked pretty straight forward until I noticed an interesting specification on the widths of certain elements. The illustrious googlites had specified a number of table cols...