Following the project managers spec
I kind of make a point of requesting a specification document and the better and precise the document is the quicker and cleaner the application will be. I always seems to get a verbal spec or a document that is totally open ended. If I followed some of the specs delivered to me then the application would not work in the real world. No thought on how the application should workand how it responds to errors, how an application is used to it’s full potential and all these things are being used every day by the spec creator. I sometimes make work for myself by adding solutions to the application that are not in the spec that lead on to the client wanting it to be expanded.
Worst thing is when the project manager comes back not with amends to how the application works but added functions that could of been thought about before or while the concept was taking place, what happens in these meeting with project managers and clients, get yourself a dicta-phone.
The problem when you get changes or additions to the spec you are always against it to get it produced. They always involve hacks to make them work in the framework you created from the first spec and you have to go through the multi platform test routine that feeds back a load of bugs on stuff you built from the first spec that have been created by adding all these hacks.
Please give me a spec created by a former black hat who has put down the role of programmer to become a project manager. Not many of those about I guess.