Slack: Slack is one of the concepts that seems to have gained the most traction. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have a clear definition yet. Zvi defined Slack as the absence of binding constraints on behaviour. I suggested that this would make it merely a synonym for freedom and that his article seems to describe, “freedom provided by having spare resources”, but Zvi wasn’t happy with it and I don’t know if he’s settled on a precise definition yet.
I suspect that this idea is so popular because it gives people a word to describe the disadvantages of running a system near maximum capacity. Zvi explains how slack reduces stress, allows you to pursuing opportunities that arise, allows you to avoid bad trade-offs and allows long-term thinking. In another key article, Raemon explains how it can lead to fragile design decisions and making poor decisions that go unnoticed.
Yup, I was thinking about the best posts so far and Slack was the one that stuck out the most in mind, both as a memorable concept and as something that’s actually enabled a large number of conversations that wouldn’t have otherwise been enabled.
Slack: Slack is one of the concepts that seems to have gained the most traction. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have a clear definition yet. Zvi defined Slack as the absence of binding constraints on behaviour. I suggested that this would make it merely a synonym for freedom and that his article seems to describe, “freedom provided by having spare resources”, but Zvi wasn’t happy with it and I don’t know if he’s settled on a precise definition yet.
I suspect that this idea is so popular because it gives people a word to describe the disadvantages of running a system near maximum capacity. Zvi explains how slack reduces stress, allows you to pursuing opportunities that arise, allows you to avoid bad trade-offs and allows long-term thinking. In another key article, Raemon explains how it can lead to fragile design decisions and making poor decisions that go unnoticed.
Yup, I was thinking about the best posts so far and Slack was the one that stuck out the most in mind, both as a memorable concept and as something that’s actually enabled a large number of conversations that wouldn’t have otherwise been enabled.