Explicit Design

Cameron has been blogging about new features in our product.. In a recent post he used the term Explicit Design.  I've been reflecting on this, and I like it. In software development we really do need to capture design data that is not just the code, but should be saved and versioned just like the code.  What do we call it?  We could call it "models" but "model" and "model driven development" are subject to so much historical baggage and methodology and terminology arguments.  "Model" just seems to imply baked-in code generation and round tripping, when there is so much more that you can do with it: planning, verifying, testing, refactoring. We need new vocabulary that represents our ability to capture versioned design data at a more abstract level than the code without simultaneously implying the history of CASE.