Implementing a perfectly detailed spec isn't really programming per se. It's more like merely translating or codemonkeying. I think that having significant unknowns in there is an inherent part of programming, and the actual cases that don't are either rare or ridiculously trivial.

And it's pretty hard to quantify any unknowns. Somebody said that programmers do know when they're productive. I know when I am and that's basically whenever I write anything at all that I _know_ will contribute to the functional or algorithmic completion. Merely that constitutes productivity!

That means I know that "if I keep doing this I will finish the program at some point". Writing boilerplate doesn't count. If I keep slamming getters, setters, and a like into my source file twelve hours a day it won't make the actual program ever ready. All I'm typing in are effectively prerequisites.

Boilerplate doesn't count even if it's mandatory in the language I'm using: I'm not sure if I could ever feel productive with Java eventhough I know I would really, really have to write a hundred setters/getters in order to finish. The logical step that would make me productive on my own scale would be to scoop power from a better language.