I'm largely self-taught in programming, so it wasn't until much later in my career that I really groked the value of foundational Computer Science. One day, I s

I'm largely self-taught in programming, so it wasn't until much later in my career that I really groked the value of foundational Computer Science. One day, I stumbled across this book: http://elementsofprogramming.com http://elementsofprogramming.com ... and it was maybe the first time I understood that you very much can explicitly define the constraints, inputs, outputs, etc, of a program. For something like a NASA shuttle, it makes absolute sense that they would have an insanely granular definition of the domain / limits under which their code must operate. Most of us deal in our day-to-day on top of a mountain of abstraction. But there are absolutely scenarios in which a formal, complete spec, is a life-or-death requirement.