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When you say "software specification" document, I think in
terms of "software requirements specification" (SRS).
The SRS (software specification) captures at a high level
ALL the requirements of the software. This document is
written by eliciting from the customer in the first place
what the customer requires of the software to be developed
for them. The SRS includes not only Marketing's input on
market viability for the product and use cases, but a
high-level description of both the functional requirements
(WHAT the software is supposed to do) and the non-functional
requirements (performance, safety, security, quality,
operating environment) as well. These requirements listed
in the SRS are rolled down to more detail throughout the
product's development life cycle from the "parent" SRS
document to the "child" documents.
One of those "child" documents is the "functional
specification" which, itself, is the "parent" to the test
design specifications and user documentation. The
functional specifications are the details of HOW the
software will meet those high-level functional requirements.
There are 3 sources that you might want to try.
Source #1: a book by Karl Weigers named "Software
Requirements." I used it to learn about "writing
requirements" on my current contract, and it was very
helpful.
In it is a sample template (ToC only) for a SRS that goes
from Overall Description (including PRODUCT FUNCTIONS, user
classes, design and implementation constraints, operating
environment, etc.) through to External Interface
Requirements, System Features, and "other NONFUNCTIONAL
requirements" (performance, safety, security, software
quality attributes, and user documentation).
Source #2: The author cites as a good source templates
derived from IEEE Standard 830-1998 "IEEE Recommended
Practice for Software Requirements Specifications" (IEEE
1998) as a "flexible, well-structured template that is
suitable for many kinds of software projects."
Source #3: a site for a series of documents, including a
table of contents listed for "How to Write Software
Requirements Specifications" at http://www.tuffley.aust.com/tcs20001.htm .
Hope this helps.
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Everything is Intertwingled.
Theodor Holm Nelson, hypertext's founding father
--- perrya -at- jps -dot- net wrote:
I would like to obtain or read a functional and software
specification document to compare what the diffrences are.
Does anyone know of a site or can anyone send as an
attachement either of these documents? What are the
differences?
