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What does "brittle" mean that "risky" doesn't? I don't think we need a new word here. Also, the listed risks are cherry picked to fit the "one thing" pattern.
by brucephillips 9y ago
What does "brittle" mean that "risky" doesn't? I don't think we need a new word here.
Also, the listed risks are cherry picked to fit the "one thing" pattern. Risks that don't fit that pattern include competition risk, technology risk, and financing risk.
- rpdillon 9y agoI think of brittleness as a subset of risk. Risk has a very large surface area, and has to be mitigated by a correspondingly large number of techniques. Brittleness seems like a useful subset to address in the context of specific techniques that can avoid it. 'One thing' seems like a useful heuristic in this context.
- brucephillips 9y agoThat's a good point, except we already have a term for that as well. It's a single point of failure.
- emmelaich 9y agoIn my experience "brittleness" has been used a long time to describe computing. They are typically far more efficient than manual methods but also starkly brittle. The difference between brittle and risk is that brittle connotes unknown/unexpected failures, whereas risk covers the whole gamut but typically known risks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_brittleness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_brittleness