Re: Please stop writing specifications that cannot be parsed/processed by software

> Please be consistent. If at all possible, write a parser to parse the
data that you embed in your specification. This will immediately inform you
of any inconsistencies.

Can ChatGpt do that? :)

Thanks,
Dimitre

On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 12:57 PM Roger L Costello <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Dear Specification Writer,
>
> Please stop writing specifications that cannot be parsed/processed by
> software. Please stop formatting your specifications as Word and PDF.
> Instead, use a format that is amenable to machine processing. The XML
> format is ideal. We want to analyze your specifications. We don't want to
> spend dozens of hours screen-scraping your Word/PDF documents.
>
> If you simply must persist in writing Word/PDF documents, then please
> write in a consistent way so that we can screen-scrape without having to
> write special case code. To illustrate, in one of your specifications you
> provide a bunch of tables with data; each table has many rows. In some
> tables you reference a note. Here's a row with a note reference:
>
> 119 Approach Route (1) Note 1 5.7
>
> Here's another row with a note reference:
>
> 52 SID Ident (1) (Note 1) 5.78
>
> Why did you embed Note 1 within parentheses in the second case but not the
> first? That's an example of not being consistent. Such inconsistencies make
> it difficult to do screen-scraping. Please be consistent. If at all
> possible, write a parser to parse the data that you embed in your
> specification. This will immediately inform you of any inconsistencies.
>
> Thank you,
> From the people who must read, understand, and analyze your specifications
>
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