4 ms·

> If you have a team of senior, experienced and bright engineers, you can with a few words point out a desire and, trust them to ask for information when there

> If you have a team of senior, experienced and bright engineers, you can with a few words point out a desire and, trust them to ask for information when there is relevant ambiguity, and expect a good outcome It's such a fallacy. First thing an experienced and bright engineer will tell you is to leave the premises with your "few words about a desire" and not return without actual specs and requirements formalized in some way. If you do not understand what you want yourself, it means hours/days/weeks/months/literally years of back and forths and broken solutions and wasted time, because natural language is slow and lossy af (the article hits the nail on the head on this one). Re "ask for information", my favorite example is when you say one thing if I ask you today and then you reply something else (maybe the opposite, it happened) if I ask you a week later because you forgot or just changed your mind. I bet a conversational interface will deal with this just fine /s

Hauthorn 2y ago
I think you work in different domains. Expecting a good outcome is different from expecting to get exactly what you intended. Formal specifications are useful in some lines of work and for some projects, less so for others. Wicked problems would be one example where formal specs are impossible by definition.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  > Formal specifications are useful in some lines of work and for some projects, less so for others There is always formal specification. Code is final formal specification in the end. But converting vague vibes from natural language into a somewhat formalized description is key ability you need for any really new non trivial project idea. Another human can't do it for you, conversational UI can't do it for you...
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Anyway, the disabled are pretty much always allowed to be collateral damage by society, so this will just be senseless pain. For games, you don't really need nor desire formal specs. But it also can really show how sometimes a director has a low tolerance for interpretation despite their communication being very loose. This leads to situations where it feels like the director is shifting designs on a dome, which is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. If nothing else, formal specification is for CYA. You get what you ask for, and any deviation should go in the next task order or have been addressed beforehand.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    > For games, you don't really need nor desire formal specs. Whoah is this wrong. Maybe when you hear "formal specs" you have something specific in your mind... Formal spec can mean almost literally anything better than natural language vibes in a "few words about a desire", which is what I replied to because I was triggered by it
PeterStuer 2y ago
I do understand that in bad cases it can be very frustrating as an engineer to chase vague statements only to be told later 'nah, that was not what I meant'. This is especially true when the gap in both directions is very large or there is incompetence and/or even adversarial stances between the parties. Language and communication only work if both parties are willing to understand. Unfortunately if either is the case "actual specs and requirements formalized", while sounding logical, and might help, in my experience did very little to save any substantial project (and I've seen a lot). The common problem is that the business/client/manager is forced to sign of on formal documents far outside their domain of competence, or the engineers are straitjacketed into commitments that do not make sense or have no idea of what is considered tacit knowledge in the domain and so can't contextualize the unstated. Those formalized documents then mostly become weaponized in a mutual destructive CYA. What I've also seen more than once is years of formalized specs and requirements work while nothing ever gets produced, and the project is aborted before even the first line of code hit test. I've given this example before: When Covid lockdows hit there were digitization projects years in planning and budgeted for years of implementation, that were hastily specked, coded and roiled out into production by a 3 person emergency team over a long weekend. Necessity apparently has a way of cutting through the BS like nothing else can. You need both sides capable, willing and able to understand. If not, good luck mitigating, but you're probably doomed either way.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  > What I've also seen more than once is years of formalized specs and requirements work while nothing ever gets produced, and the project is aborted before even the first line of code hit test. It just shows that no one really understood what they wanted. It is crazy to expect somebody to understand something better than you and it is hilarious to want a conversational UI to understand something better than you.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    The US having this culture of blame and deflect doesn't help either. When you're more concerned about making sure you can't be held liable if X fails, then you spend more time covering your tracks than developing the project. And that's how the beauracracy creeps in. And approach of shared responsibility in all respects (successes and failure) would accelerate past the inevitable shortcomings that occur and let all parties focus on recovering and delivering.
lolinder 2y ago
> First thing an experienced and bright engineer will tell you is to leave the premises with your "few words about a desire" and not return without actual specs and requirements formalized in some way. No, that's what a junior engineer will do. The first thing that an experienced and bright senior engineer will do is think over the request and ask clarifying questions in pursuit of a more rigorous specification, then repeat back their understanding of the problem and their plan. If they're very bright they'll get the plan down in writing so we stay on the same page. The primary job of a senior engineer is not to turn formal specifications into code, it's to turn vague business requests into formal specifications. They're senior enough to recognize that that's the actually difficult part of the work, the thing that keeps them employed.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  I used to think like you. My job is to ask questions etc. But after a couple decades I see if someone doesn't bother to even think about the idea enough to understand it himself beyond a few words he is not worth engaging with in this fashion. He doesn't really know what he wants. Today I ask a clarifying question he says one thing, next week he changes his mind or forgets and the result slowly becomes a mess > The primary job of a senior engineer is not to turn formal specifications into code, it's to turn vague business requests into formal specifications. Converting vibes and external world into specific requirements is product owner job. Do not mistake software engineers and product people. These are very different things. Sometimes these things are done by the same person if the org has not enough money. Many freelancers working with small biz do both. I often do both at my day job. But this is a higher level role and if you are a senior engineer doing product stuff I hope it is recognized and you get proportionate comp.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    You and I are either talking about very different kinds of specifications or very different kinds of product people. The product people I'm familiar with are completely incapable of creating a specification that is sufficiently detailed to implement without a lot of back and forth. Not because they're not good at what they do, but because what they do does not include defining requirements in sufficient fidelity for an engineer to act on.

Hauthorn 2y ago

I think you work in different domains. Expecting a good outcome is different from expecting to get exactly what you intended. Formal specifications are useful in some lines of work and for some projects, less so for others. Wicked problems would be one example where formal specs are impossible by definition.

throwaway290 2y ago
> Formal specifications are useful in some lines of work and for some projects, less so for others There is always formal specification. Code is final formal specification in the end. But converting vague vibes from natural language into a somewhat formalized description is key ability you need for any really new non trivial project idea. Another human can't do it for you, conversational UI can't do it for you...
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>Anyway, the disabled are pretty much always allowed to be collateral damage by society, so this will just be senseless pain. For games, you don't really need nor desire formal specs. But it also can really show how sometimes a director has a low tolerance for interpretation despite their communication being very loose. This leads to situations where it feels like the director is shifting designs on a dome, which is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. If nothing else, formal specification is for CYA. You get what you ask for, and any deviation should go in the next task order or have been addressed beforehand.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  > For games, you don't really need nor desire formal specs. Whoah is this wrong. Maybe when you hear "formal specs" you have something specific in your mind... Formal spec can mean almost literally anything better than natural language vibes in a "few words about a desire", which is what I replied to because I was triggered by it

PeterStuer 2y ago

I do understand that in bad cases it can be very frustrating as an engineer to chase vague statements only to be told later 'nah, that was not what I meant'. This is especially true when the gap in both directions is very large or there is incompetence and/or even adversarial stances between the parties. Language and communication only work if both parties are willing to understand. Unfortunately if either is the case "actual specs and requirements formalized", while sounding logical, and might help, in my experience did very little to save any substantial project (and I've seen a lot). The common problem is that the business/client/manager is forced to sign of on formal documents far outside their domain of competence, or the engineers are straitjacketed into commitments that do not make sense or have no idea of what is considered tacit knowledge in the domain and so can't contextualize the unstated. Those formalized documents then mostly become weaponized in a mutual destructive CYA. What I've also seen more than once is years of formalized specs and requirements work while nothing ever gets produced, and the project is aborted before even the first line of code hit test. I've given this example before: When Covid lockdows hit there were digitization projects years in planning and budgeted for years of implementation, that were hastily specked, coded and roiled out into production by a 3 person emergency team over a long weekend. Necessity apparently has a way of cutting through the BS like nothing else can. You need both sides capable, willing and able to understand. If not, good luck mitigating, but you're probably doomed either way.

throwaway290 2y ago
> What I've also seen more than once is years of formalized specs and requirements work while nothing ever gets produced, and the project is aborted before even the first line of code hit test. It just shows that no one really understood what they wanted. It is crazy to expect somebody to understand something better than you and it is hilarious to want a conversational UI to understand something better than you.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  The US having this culture of blame and deflect doesn't help either. When you're more concerned about making sure you can't be held liable if X fails, then you spend more time covering your tracks than developing the project. And that's how the beauracracy creeps in. And approach of shared responsibility in all respects (successes and failure) would accelerate past the inevitable shortcomings that occur and let all parties focus on recovering and delivering.

lolinder 2y ago

> First thing an experienced and bright engineer will tell you is to leave the premises with your "few words about a desire" and not return without actual specs and requirements formalized in some way. No, that's what a junior engineer will do. The first thing that an experienced and bright senior engineer will do is think over the request and ask clarifying questions in pursuit of a more rigorous specification, then repeat back their understanding of the problem and their plan. If they're very bright they'll get the plan down in writing so we stay on the same page. The primary job of a senior engineer is not to turn formal specifications into code, it's to turn vague business requests into formal specifications. They're senior enough to recognize that that's the actually difficult part of the work, the thing that keeps them employed.

throwaway290 2y ago
I used to think like you. My job is to ask questions etc. But after a couple decades I see if someone doesn't bother to even think about the idea enough to understand it himself beyond a few words he is not worth engaging with in this fashion. He doesn't really know what he wants. Today I ask a clarifying question he says one thing, next week he changes his mind or forgets and the result slowly becomes a mess > The primary job of a senior engineer is not to turn formal specifications into code, it's to turn vague business requests into formal specifications. Converting vibes and external world into specific requirements is product owner job. Do not mistake software engineers and product people. These are very different things. Sometimes these things are done by the same person if the org has not enough money. Many freelancers working with small biz do both. I often do both at my day job. But this is a higher level role and if you are a senior engineer doing product stuff I hope it is recognized and you get proportionate comp.
- lolinder 2y ago
  You and I are either talking about very different kinds of specifications or very different kinds of product people. The product people I'm familiar with are completely incapable of creating a specification that is sufficiently detailed to implement without a lot of back and forth. Not because they're not good at what they do, but because what they do does not include defining requirements in sufficient fidelity for an engineer to act on.