Hi, the author here. I think its a good point you make. However, I believe being based on JSON or YAML, many of the specification formats provide at least some degree of readability. Also, one idea of them is to provide the basis for creating consistent, human-targeted documentations (see the right side of <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;editor.swagger.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;editor.swagger.io&#x2F;</a>). One might say these documentations are not good enough, but that would be a discussion about the quality of the tooling, rather than an argument against formal specifications per se.