Comment by bcrosby95

Comment by bcrosby95 a day ago

2 replies

When you say specification, what, specifically, does that mean? Do you have an example?

I've actually been playing around with languages that separate implementation from specification under the theory that it will be better for this sort of stuff, but that leaves an extremely limited number of options (C, C++, Ada... not sure what else).

I've been using C and the various LLMs I've tried seem to have issues with the lack of memory safety there.

sothatsit a day ago

A "specification" as in a text document outlining all the changes to make.

For example, it might include: Overview, Database Design (Migration, Schema Updates), Backend Implementation (Model Updates, API updates), Frontend Implementation (Page Updates, Component Design), Implementation Order, Testing Considerations, Security Considerations, Performance Considerations.

It sounds like a lot when I type it out, but it is pretty quick to read through and edit.

The specification document is generated by a planning prompt that tells Claude to analyse the feature description (the couple paragraphs I wrote), research the repository context, research best practices, present a plan, gather specific requirements, perform quality control, and finally generate the planning document.

I'm not sure if this is the best process, but it seems to work pretty well.

viraptor a day ago

Like a spec you'd hand to a contractor. List of requirements, some business context, etc. Not a formal algorithm spec.

My basic initial prompt for that is: "we're creating a markdown specification for (...). I'll start with basic description and at each step you should refine the spec to include the new information and note what information is missing or could use refinement."