You're picking nits that don't mean anything. If a specification exists outside of the definition of the program -- aka the code -- then it is only useful as a

You're picking nits that don't mean anything. If a specification exists outside of the definition of the program -- aka the code -- then it is only useful as a point of comparison between intent and implementation. Most software in business is written to implement a process. And business processes are exactly defined as a common workflow with edge cases and exception handling. Not all software is like this, but a hell of a lot of it is. And those business processes are not always complete, and they are typically changing over time as well. Any idea of a global specification outside of the process that the code is actually implementing becomes useless pretty fast.