ezyang’s blog

the arc of software bends towards understanding

Generalization and vagueness in specifications

What semantics has to say about specifications Conventional wisdom is that premature generalization is bad (architecture astronauts) and vague specifications are appropriate for top-down engineering but not bottom-up. Can we say something a little more precise about this? Semantics are formal specifications of programming languages. They are perhaps some of the most well-studied forms of […]

  • December 20, 2010