[hitchstory]

Jane logs in, enters her DOB which is 11/5/1998, does Y the result of which is Z.

Where X, Y and Z are very specific.

These example scenarios work well as a communication medium for discussing intended program behavior as well as translating well into tests.

>enumerate every possible combination

Whereas if you start doing this you will probably confuse your stakeholders.

Specific examples tend to make better specifications.

[drdeca]

A “specification” which is based on just “the desired behavior in a few specific examples” seems to allow undesired behavior without it being clear whether said behavior is allowed by the spec.

That to me doesn’t seem like what a “specification” is.

Now, maybe having good examples is more important for business use cases than having a specification.

But I generally wouldn’t call it one.