I’ll be honest. I both love and hate technical documentation.
In the love camp, technical documentation is as precious as gold if I have to fix or enhance a legacy application that someone created before me. And the gold is not just the details but often the unwritten words between the sentences. The subtle tone of the author often tells me as much about the intent of the application and the nuanced politics that swirled around its creation.
In the hate camp is the monotony of going from being a creator writing code, something I love to do, to someone either retelling a story for the nth time or pretending to be an oracle able to predict the future. As they say in the military, the plan is the first casualty of any battle.
In the end, I consider formal, structured documentation a necessary evil. When I need it, spending the time to create it might pay off in the future, either for the next developer who takes over for me or me.
Let’s see how good ChatGPT 4 is turning my code into a technical specification document.
Me
Write a technical specification document for the most recent iteration of the application.

Technical Specification Document
SwiftUI Circular Progress Time Indicator Application
Version: 1.0
Date: [Date]
Author: [Author]
1. Introduction
The SwiftUI Circular Progress Time Indicator application is a single-view iOS application designed to display the current time in hours, minutes, and seconds using a nested group of circular progress indicators. Each circular progress indicator is assigned a different color and size, representing hours, minutes, and seconds.
2. Application Overview
2.1 Purpose
The purpose of this application is to provide a visually appealing and intuitive way to represent the current time using circular progress indicators.
2.2 Features
- Displays the current time using a nested group of circular progress indicators for hours, minutes, and seconds.
- The circular progress indicators have different colors: blue for hours, green for minutes, and red for seconds.
- The diameters of the minutes and hours circular progress indicators are 75% and 50% the diameter of the seconds indicator, respectively.
- The circular progress indicators have a lineWidth of 24.
- The current time is displayed below the nested circular progress indicators with separate colors for hours, minutes, and seconds.
- The circular progress meters include animations that rewind the value back to zero when they reach their maximum value.
3. Technical Requirements
3.1 Platforms
The application is developed using SwiftUI and is compatible with iOS devices running iOS 15 or later.
3.2 Dependencies
No external dependencies are required for this application.
4. Application Structure
The application consists of a single view (ContentView
) containing the following components:
VStack
: Contains the main layout of the application.ZStack
: Contains the nested circular progress indicators.CircularProgressView
: Custom view for the hours circular progress indicator.ZStack
: Contains the minutes and seconds circular progress indicators.CircularProgressView
: Custom view for the minutes circular progress indicator.CircularProgressView
: Custom view for the seconds circular progress indicator.
HStack
: Contains theText
views displaying the current time in hours, minutes, and seconds with separate colors for each value.
5. Application Logic
5.1 Updating the Time
The application uses a timer with a 1-second interval to update the current date and time. On each timer tick, the current date is updated, which subsequently updates the hours, minutes, and seconds progress indicators.
5.2 Calculating Progress
The application calculates the progress for hours, minutes, and seconds as follows:
- Hours progress: The current hour divided by 12 (resulting in a value between 0 and 1).
- Minutes progress: The current minute divided by 60 (resulting in a value between 0 and 1).
- Seconds progress: The current second divided by 60 (resulting in a value between 0 and 1).
5.3 Animations
When a progress indicator reaches its maximum value, it animates the rewind back to zero using a linear animation with a 0.2-second duration.
Me
Thank you. That was a description of the application far better than I could have created.

You’re welcome! I’m glad you found the technical specification document helpful. If you have any more questions or need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’m here to help!
Next up my summary and conclusions about AI and software development. How AI will turn our jobs into vocations and as a result will change everything.