A specification, whether formal or less formal, is very different from the source code.

>The traditional name for this spec is ‘source code’

Specs are the end goal, not how the software look at a moment in time.

Technology evolves and traditions change. What persists is the role, not the filename and its extension. Weddings are still weddings even after things went from painted portraits to film cameras to camcorders to smartphones to livestreams. Same with birthdays. Cards became phone calls, Facebook wall posts, group chats, shared albums, or generated videos (Sora, RIP).

The tradition of having a deck of punch cards evolved to having assembly, to Pascal, Fortran, C, basic. The important part is a human-auditable directive, not an opaque, generated artifact as the thing that matters.

have evolved and adapted. Photography, film cameras, polaroids, camcorders, digital cameras, smartphones, social media, Zoom/virtual attendees. Same with birthdays. Handwritten cards, to phone calls to e-cards, Facebook wall posts, video calls, shared photo albums and Sora (RIP) videos.