alt Hacker NewsThe traditional name for this spec is ‘source code’ — a canonical source of truth for the behaviour of a system that is as human-readable as we know how to make it, that will be processed by automated tools into a less-readable derived artefact for a computer to execute.
Checking the compiled artefact into the codebase without checking in its source code has always been a risky move!
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>The traditional name for this spec is ‘source code’
Specs are the end goal, not how the software look at a moment in time.
Technology evolves and traditions change. What persists is the role, not the filename and its extension. Weddings are still weddings even after things went from painted portraits to film cameras to camcorders to smartphones to livestreams. Same with birthdays. Cards became phone calls, Facebook wall posts, group chats, shared albums, or generated videos (Sora, RIP).
The tradition of having a deck of punch cards evolved to having assembly, to Pascal, Fortran, C, basic. The important part is a human-auditable directive, not an opaque, generated artifact as the thing that matters.
have evolved and adapted. Photography, film cameras, polaroids, camcorders, digital cameras, smartphones, social media, Zoom/virtual attendees. Same with birthdays. Handwritten cards, to phone calls to e-cards, Facebook wall posts, video calls, shared photo albums and Sora (RIP) videos.
A specification, whether formal or less formal, is very different from the source code.