Comments on: What does the spec say again? http://www.kalyr.co.uk/weblog/computing/testing/what-does-the-spec-say-again/ The blogs of Tim Hall Fri, 14 Apr 2017 23:35:42 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.41 By: Abi Sutherland http://www.kalyr.co.uk/weblog/computing/testing/what-does-the-spec-say-again/comment-page-1/#comment-37363 Wed, 29 Jan 2014 23:11:44 +0000 http://www.kalyr.co.uk/weblog/?p=9768#comment-37363 I’ve certainly worked on projects like your pear-shaped deathmarch, particularly in relatively high-risk environments like financial services. I’m now in much more agile contexts, and I have to say, I do appreciate the flexibility that we get from frequent communication and empowered system owners.

Having said that, I’m not convinced that it’s not the developer’s job to query unclear specifications if they notice them. It’s no more difficult, and much less expensive, to poke at them before coding than it is to drop the job on the tester at the end of the lifecycle. I don’t want to blame devs for struggling with dysfunctional working environments, but passing the hairball down the line just makes it worse for everybody on the project.

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