RE: Usable Specs?

["Anthony Markatos" <tonymar -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Tony Markatos said:

From an academic perspective, software requirements specs ARE supposed to be 
task oriented and discuss the WHAT.

Bill Burns asks:

From an academic perspective based on what discipline? Tech comm? Software 
engineering?

Tony Markatos responds:

Software engineering; I do not know of any TW oriented literature on 
software requirements specification.  I am a big fan of Ed Yourdon & 
friends.  He is really big on task oriented specs.

(Note: Where as Yourdon would call "Remove the Staples" a function and 
Hackos would call the same a task, they are both the same thing -- noun/verb 
comibinations describing WHAT is being done within the manual and/or 
computerized system under consideration.)

Bill Burns asks

And at what level do specs need to be task based?

Tony Markatos responds:

All levels.  At the higher levels, the tasks descriptions are more abstract 
(less concrete), but they still need to be highly task oriented.

Bill Burns said:

We often see one spec for the code and one for the UI. One describes how the 
software works behind the UI. We don't use this much. The other describes 
each feature of the UI.

Tony Markatos responds:

I must admit, I have not seen nor do I know about an animal called a UI 
spec.  Having said that, a spec that (only) describes how the software works 
behind the UI (the other spec that you mention) will not be effective 
because it is not end user focused.









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