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> what is that? A collection of popular buzz-words in contemporary software engineering research. > And secondly, does it serve the customer if those are not

> what is that? A collection of popular buzz-words in contemporary software engineering research. > And secondly, does it serve the customer if those are not the customer's requirements? These are never any customer's requirements. Not a sane customer, at least. Instead, they are (conjectured, probably correctly, to be) generalizations of sufficiently many customers' requirements. But you're correct -- most customers don't want or need any of those things (except non-linearity. But every piece of software everywhere has this spades.)

matt4077 10y ago
Or you could read the book. I haven't (summer reading list, again). But it's got a 20-page bibliography, and appendices with all sorts of greek letters that define, well, a lot. I think. The Black Swan was also by Taleb and probably the most influential finance book of the last 20 years, plus a great read for anybody thinking in 'systems'. It'd give the idea the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes words have no meaning, sometimes it takes some work.
- edocecrous 10y ago
  The parent didn't ask what antifragile means. The parent asked what non-linear, proactive, and self adaptive means, especially when taken as requirements for a software system. Reading Taleb's book to answer that question is probably a lot like trying to extract evolved dogma out of a religious text because each of those words has taken on a life and meaning of their own in SE literature. You can probably eventually get close, but you're better off just reading a few SE papers on those topics and inferring the authors' intended meaning.
- kazinator 10y ago
  A URL to a git repo showing the non-linear, self-adaptive piece of software would be more effective.
the_af 10y ago
I agree they seem like buzz-words, but not from software engineering research. They look entreprisey or startup friendly buzz-words to me.

matt4077 10y ago

Or you could read the book. I haven't (summer reading list, again). But it's got a 20-page bibliography, and appendices with all sorts of greek letters that define, well, a lot. I think. The Black Swan was also by Taleb and probably the most influential finance book of the last 20 years, plus a great read for anybody thinking in 'systems'. It'd give the idea the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes words have no meaning, sometimes it takes some work.

edocecrous 10y ago
The parent didn't ask what antifragile means. The parent asked what non-linear, proactive, and self adaptive means, especially when taken as requirements for a software system. Reading Taleb's book to answer that question is probably a lot like trying to extract evolved dogma out of a religious text because each of those words has taken on a life and meaning of their own in SE literature. You can probably eventually get close, but you're better off just reading a few SE papers on those topics and inferring the authors' intended meaning.
kazinator 10y ago
A URL to a git repo showing the non-linear, self-adaptive piece of software would be more effective.

the_af 10y ago

I agree they seem like buzz-words, but not from software engineering research. They look entreprisey or startup friendly buzz-words to me.