3
Sexism. If there??™s one thing that enrages my wife more than sexism, it??™s the habit of writing
s/he
, or
his, or hers
repeatedly. She finds it tedious to read and understands that the use of
his, him
, or
he
are nothing other than a linguistic
oddity confined to the English language. Italians, French, and Germans manage perfectly well by relating the pronoun??™s
gender to the object rather than the subject: viz.
il suo computer, la plume de mon oncle
etc. Therefore for
his
read
hers,
etc.
Introduction
5
There are variants:
??? We don??™t write specifications.
??? The product is too advanced/complex for a specification to be written.
??? That??™s too process for this year.
4
Before we all go down with a bad attack of structured sneering let us recall that:
??? To have a complete requirements specification is impossible (never mind what the IEEE says),
because to be complete the specification would have to say everything the system must be able
to do, and to do that you would have to have the system itself. So most sensible people settle
for a requirements specification sufficient to meet the stakeholders??™ needs.
??? Needs change, therefore requirements specifications must change. Requirements specifications
can??™t change if they don??™t exist.
??? In the past there was a race of absolutists who wanted cast-iron definitions of everything before
they would release a development cent. They leave a long shadow in the collective memory.
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