The Death of the Specification
techcrunch.com
The Death of the Specification
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: The Death of the Specification
#2This is a good article, but the spec has been dead since the release of the first iPhone. (Maybe earlier, but that was when everyone talked about it.) Apple showed that users don't really care about spec unless everything else looks the same. When all consumers have are rows and rows of identical-looking computers, they pick the one with the highest numbers. When they have a single piece of hardware, with no specs at all, but which behaves intuitively and does what they need, the spec doesn't matter.
Everything the article says follows from that.
Re: The Death of the Specification
#3Based on the headline, I thought this would be about how software engineering is now most often done in a scattershot--sorry, agile--manner, without documents that first detail customer requirements, then product specifications, and so on.*
By the way, my somewhat sarcastic, somewhat serious rule of thumb is to avoid specs when doing software in-house that I direct and to insist on specs when contracting out work.
Re: The Death of the Specification
#4TL;DR version - the relative popularity of technology gizmos doesn't correllate well with their specifications.
Somebody rolled out from under a rock that they ahd been in since 2000 and woke up apparently. The history was that with x86 flavored personal computers, there was a 15 year period between 1985 and 2000 where you could take two machines, compare the specs of the ram/processor/video and come up with a 'good, better, best' scale. This made it easy for technology journalists, they could get a press release for the new HP or Toshiba or Alienware PC and say "this is better than last years/competitor X's/etc model." Easy sauce. But eventually PCs and laptops got to be good enough so that most people didn't care, it just worked, and having more features was better, or having better features. So the 'specs' or the details of how the manufacturer did, was less important.
Why Techcrunch's editors didn't figure this out, oh, 5 or 6 years ago, is anyone's guess.
Now it would be great if they would internalize this newfound understanding and stop pumping up OMGWTFBBQ we have PS3 graphics on an ARM chip! Type headlines and instead focus on the people and companies who are using the capabilities of this embarassment of riches to provide new and interesting products. They do some of that of course but so far, for me at least, its not nearly enough relative to this 'specs are dead' stuff.
Re: The Death of the Specification
#5On the one hand, I agree that the experience of using something is all that matters, and only a handful of specs (like storage capacity) actually mean anything.
On the other, I'm kinda not looking forward to the upcoming glut of Kindle Fire owners spouting off about what goobers iPad owners are, because they got the same thing (as far as they're concerned) for less than half the money.
Re: The Death of the Specification
#6TL;DR version - the relative popularity of technology gizmos doesn't correllate well with their specifications. Somebody rolled out from under a rock that they ahd been in since 2000 and woke up apparently. The history was that with x86 flavored personal computers, there was a 15 year period between 1985 and 2000 where you could take two machines, compare the specs of the ram/processor/video and come up with a 'good,…
I agree. These days it's just as much about what content channels are available on the platform as well. Hulu, Netflix, , Flash support etc.
I think back to satellite radio: Sirus vs. XM and it was about who had which sports, and Howard Stern. Nobody was talking (or caring) about bit-rates or spectrum support.
Re: The Death of the Specification
#7Based on the headline, I thought this would be about how software engineering is now most often done in a scattershot--sorry, agile--manner, without documents that first detail customer requirements, then product specifications, and so on.* By the way, my somewhat sarcastic, somewhat serious rule of thumb is to avoid specs when doing software in-house that I direct and to insist on specs when contracting out work. *…
Curious what you mean with "avoid specs", how do you know what to build?
Re: The Death of the Specification
#8Based on the headline, I thought this would be about how software engineering is now most often done in a scattershot--sorry, agile--manner, without documents that first detail customer requirements, then product specifications, and so on.* By the way, my somewhat sarcastic, somewhat serious rule of thumb is to avoid specs when doing software in-house that I direct and to insist on specs when contracting out work. *…
Curious what you mean with "avoid specs", how do you know what to build?
Napkin drawings. Lots and lots of napkin drawings.
Re: The Death of the Specification
#9It is a bad thing that companies can charge monopoly prices.
It is a good thing that companies write good software.
Some specs are important. People care about storage space, screen quality, device responsiveness and battery life.
Some companies have escaped the competitive hardware market with differentiated software (or other things). So while 32GB micro SD cards cost $30, some others can charge $100 for 32GB of flash storage.
http://www.google.com/search?q=32gb+micro+sd&tbm=shop...
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/ipod_...
In an area of specification that people definitely care about, some companies can charge a 300% premium.
Re: The Death of the Specification
#10Based on the headline, I thought this would be about how software engineering is now most often done in a scattershot--sorry, agile--manner, without documents that first detail customer requirements, then product specifications, and so on.* By the way, my somewhat sarcastic, somewhat serious rule of thumb is to avoid specs when doing software in-house that I direct and to insist on specs when contracting out work. *…
Curious what you mean with "avoid specs", how do you know what to build?
How do you know what to write in the spec?