Hi Nikki,

Well, here's the down and dirty.

If you are a small shop and sell to small clients then you can be forgiven any of those things. Seriously, no one needs the specs if no one is ever going to have to change your code without your active help. And no one on the client side needs manuals because someone will always be able to transfer knowledge as needed. In a small environment.

But, in a situation where you don't know all of your customers and things may grow beyond your ability to manage these things are important. Speaking from a test perspective, functional requirements are required as they are what defines precise behavior. Manuals (or eHelp) are required to describe that behavior.

It all depends on how personal your relationship is with your clientele.



>i hv been a progrmmer for a few years most of it self taught, no fancy college stuff. recently our company hired a consultant and he was surprised that i hv not yet created a
>
>functional analysis
>program analysis
>user manual
>
>of the program
>
>and a lot of other stuff,
>
>we only have 5 employees in our company, everyone knows the program inside out.
>
>my question here is
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>1. how important are these things and what are these things (except the user manual which i understand)
>
>2. is the consultant just trying to impress my boss
>
>3. what other documentations are there which are necessary to be done along with the program?
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>4. where do i get to learn all this stuff?
>
>any help is welcome
>
>thanks