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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: Stolfo's call for discussion
Message-ID: <346@opus.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Apr-84 01:55:52 EST
Article-I.D.: opus.346
Posted: Tue Apr 10 01:55:52 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Apr-84 05:49:55 EST
References: <545@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 31

<>
>One way AI programming is different from much of the programming in other
>fields is that for AI it is often impossible to produce a complete set of
>specifications before beginning to code.
>
>The accepted wisdom of software engineering is that one should have a
>complete, final set of specifications for a program before writing a
>single line of code.  It is recognized that this is an ideal, not
>typical reality, since often it is only during coding that one finds
>the last bugs in the specs.  However, it is held up as a goal to
>be approached as closely as possible.

I submit that these statements are NOT correct in general for non-AI
programs.  Systems whose implementations are not preceded by complete
specifications include those which
	- involve new hardware whose actual capability (e.g., speed) is
	  uncertain.
	- are designed with sufficiently new hardware and/or are to be
	  manufactured in sufficient quantity that hardware price per-
	  formance tradeoffs will change significantly in the course of the
	  development.
	- require user-interface decisions for which no existing body of
	  knowledge exists (or is adequate) - thus the user interface is
	  strongly prototype (read: trial/error) oriented.
as well as the generally-understood characteristics of AI programs.  In
some sense, my criteria are equivalent to "systems which don't represent
problems already solved in some way already" - and there are a lot of such
problems.
-- 
"A friend of the devil is a friend of mine."		Dick Dunn
{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd				(303) 444-5710 x3086