Exploration Through Example

Example-driven development, Agile testing, context-driven testing, Agile programming, Ruby, and other things of interest to Brian Marick

191.8

⇒

167.2

⇒

186.2

183.6

184.0

183.2

184.6

Wed, 15 Dec 2004

Bill of Rights

Today is the 213th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights. That document means a lot to me.

It's also a pretty good example of how difficult it is to write an ironclad requirements document, especially in natural language. It's a bit presumptuous, I know, but a lot of the text could have benefited from my first rule for revising. And it might have helped to have an appendix with examples / tests. ("So this policeman can magically see through walls. He claims that means he doesn't need a warrant. He's wrong because the whole point of the amendment is the bit about being 'secure in their houses'.") Oh, we're doing OK having a different group write the tests. But some sort of record of conversations around specific examples might have helped us understand how the writers intended us to think about the requirements and extrapolate from them.

## Posted at 13:20 in category /misc [permalink] [top]