spec file documentation

[Jonathan Ryshpan]

Please allow me to vent my irritation about the state of spec file
documentation.  

%Flame on:
Even after looking over postings on the web and Eric Foster-Johnson's
long book about RPM, but I still can't find definitive answers to two
simple questions (among others): 
     1. What is the value of the macro "%{name}"?  I guess it's the
        value of the "Name:" entry in the spec file, but since I can't
        find this stated anywhere, it's only a guess. 
     2. %configure appears to take an argument, at least it has one in
        the spec file I am trying to understand and modify.  What does
        the argument do?
For a utility as important as rpmbuild, the state of the documentation
is truly dismal.
%Flame off

Thanks - jon