One of the quotes suggests that DeMarco (the author of the book under discussion in this post) himself views 'slack' somewhat negatively: > “Slack represents o

One of the quotes suggests that DeMarco (the author of the book under discussion in this post) himself views 'slack' somewhat negatively: > “Slack represents operational capacity sacrificed in the interests of long-term health.” [emphasis mine] Quibble it might be, but nevertheless: surely if the goal is to appreciate the value of 'slack,' it would be better to describe it as an investment in long-term health, rather than a sacrifice for it? To be fair, I suspect he was trying to implicitly refer to "opportunity cost" - every investment implies a "sacrifice" of the alternatives. But it seems to lead the blog post author into a similar dissonant frame of thinking: > Slack consists of excess resources... Slack is vital... Here I quibble with the use of "excess." Excess compared to what? Presumably, excess compared to the resources one might assume were necessary to guarantee a healthy operation - but as the author then notes, these resources are not "excess" at all, but indeed "vital!" In other words, they are fundamental to the continued existence of the operation. Why imply anything else?