A sufficiently detailed spec is code
This post is essentially this comic strip expanded into a full-length post: For a long time I didn’t need a post like the one I’m about to write. If someone brought up the idea of generating code from specifications I’d share the above image with them and that would usually do the trick. However, agentic coding advocates claim to have found a way to defy gravity and generate code purely from specification documents. Moreover, they’ve also muddied the waters enough that I believe the above comic strip warrants additional commentary for why their claims are misleading. In my experience their advocacy is rooted in two common misconceptions: Misconception 1: specification documents are simpler than the corresponding code They lean on this misconception when marketing agentic coding to…
