> All you have to do is write the documentation very specifically... And then compile it. That is to say, if you've written your spec sufficiently precisely,

> All you have to do is write the documentation very specifically... And then compile it. That is to say, if you've written your spec sufficiently precisely, then it _is_ code, and will compile, thereby sparing the need to hire programmers. The reason that you need programmers is that you haven't written the specs specifically enough, usually because it's essentially impossible to specify (many kinds of) software that accurately a priori. Furthermore, and on this point I think we agree, there needs to be a fairly wide channel of communication between the engineer and the product manager exactly so that ambiguities in the spec can be worked out. Until the inconvenience of having subtle technical conversations with someone twelve time zones away becomes negligible compared with a face-to-face conversation, local programmers will have an advantage over overseas programmers. (If the boss is overseas, of course, things are different.)