[lelanthran]

I've never seen a spec survive first contact with implementation. The spec is refined while writing the code.

Hell, you probably couldn't even build a simple bike shed from plans without having to revise them while building, so I am skeptical that without writing you are going to pinpoint the problems in the spec.

Reading only gets you a short way towards learning.

[surgical_fire]

> I've never seen a spec survive first contact with implementation. The spec is refined while writing the code.

Neither have I. This does not make the spec useless. I don't spec hoping that it will be the source of truth, I spec because planning more often than not allows me to spot inconsistencies and ambiguity ahead of time, not halfway through implementation.

> Hell, you probably couldn't even build a simple bike shed from plans without having to revise them while building, so I am skeptical that without writing you are going to pinpoint the problems in the spec.

I think you are using specification and design wrong.

It's not supposed to be a bible that implementation can't deviate from. It's a plan, not law. It's okay for the plan to be adjusted in contact with reality.

It's still useful to know ahead of time constraints, expected output, assumptions, premises, etc.

[lelanthran]

> It's not supposed to be a bible that implementation can't deviate from. It's a plan, not law. It's okay for the plan to be adjusted in contact with reality.

My point is that without writing, you can't surface the type of problems you usually surface. The AI isn't going to surface those problems for you.

It's rare when reviewing that you think "Oh shit, this approach is totally wrong, we need to throw it away", while it's common when writing code to have that reaction.

If you aren't writing, you aren't having that reaction, and you aren't going to get it from reviewing code that has thousands of green "passed" lines in the testsuite.

[surgical_fire]

> It's rare when reviewing that you think "Oh shit, this approach is totally wrong, we need to throw it away", while it's common when writing code to have that reaction.

That's not my experience. It is actually very common for specifications and design to be reviewed and improved.

[lelanthran]

> It is actually very common for specifications and design to be reviewed and improved.

I think there may be crossed wires here - specs and designs are reviewed, but I've never seen a code review result in a spec+design review, while I always see spec+desiogn review happen during the "writing code" phase.

In short, reading code does not result in a spec+design review, writing code does. If you are not writing code and only reading it is unlikely you will trigger a spec+design review.