I'm writing a Software Design Document. It is being written in parallel to the development, so as some features are already finished they are written in past tense (the only way I know of articulating that is past tense). As for features which haven't yet been developed, I only know how to articulate that in the future tense. Is there a way to declare the same thing (I'm sure a verb is needed), without tense? And a common, colloquial, non-odd sounding way too?
I currently have these 2 problems with being forced to use past or future tense,
- When a feature is implemented, it must be updated in the spec doc. Not a bad practice, but if it is missed then it will be misleading and confusing, not a good thing.
- I want the software design document to talk only about the specifications, since it is a specification document. I don't want to to be correlated to the progress of the project.
For example, my statements about the specifications are as follows:
- The configuration file produced is in the Windows INI format.
- The user will be prompted to
Best Answer
A design document is supposed to describe the design, not the current progress. The design stays the same, no matter how much of it is already implemented (or indeed whether anything at all gets implemented ever). So pick one tense and stick with it. For example,
And look — as chance would have it, I'm not using past or future tense there. (Though of course you could just as well use the future "tense" throughout.)