Yes, the "is it negotiable" part is a difference. Often though "security" is an NFR and that's supposed to be one of the least negotiable!

Interesting also the mention of "form versus function", as there's a very famous saying, "form follows function" i.e., don't bother with arbitrary things, let the whole be honest about what it is and what it does, even in how it looks.

I guess NFR has entered the culture and it's too late to change it.

Just like how people now commonly mistake saying "less" instead of "fewer". And how "literally" has two opposite meanings.

Thanks. I appreciate the points.

I think for me it's that, just about every requirement will relate in some way to function.

Security, for example, can't just be a non-functional requirement because many security requirements actually change how the system works. At its simplest you have to build a functioning login page, rather than not have any login page. Likewise, with PCI DSS, you have to change how an operator speaks on a phone line, the equipment they use, what functions that equipment is permitted to have (can't be a wireless headset, and there can be no function to write the number down on an electronic notepad).

In one of the other replies, someone corrected me because I was using too narrow a definition of "non"". Well, that reminds me, it's the same with the word "function"". Function has very broad meanings. It's not just what something does, it's also it's purposes, and so on.

I think it would be clearer to simply name things as aesthetic requirements, security requirements, market requirements, cost requirements, and so on.

I don't see what the term "NFR" adds that's useful...?

There's far more overlap between aesthetics and function than there are differences. The example of a house, if you choose steel frame or wooden construction or something else, that dictates the aesthetics. And if you choose a different aesthetics, then that's going to dictate the construction. Even the colour of paint can perform a function, climatically, are you reflecting light to keep cool? are you causing glare? Etc.

I think there are huge overlaps across all "functions", but NFR implies they can be thought of in isolation, and I think that is misleading.

Yes, think this is it. There can be a requirement that the system show a catalogue, handle ordering, do stock control, and handle customer feedback, but there's also requirements for legal reasons, card processing security rules, internationalisation, accessibility, branding, colour schemes to suit the current fashions, deployment workflows, requirements for disaster recovery, architectural good practice requirements, etc. etc., and they all have to "work" in the broad sense of the word.

So what benefit is there is labelling some of these "functional" and some "non-functional"? What's the benefit of putting them into those boxes? Given that the moment you have to actually implement, you'll have to look at the actual requirement, and not whether it's "functional" or "non-functional".

I imagine the term was invented in some meeting where a super pedantic engineer was dismissing all other concerns because they were not on his list of "functions", and in desperation the rest of the people said, "geez, ok, look, these are non-functional requirements..."

The dictionary I looked at didn't include "absence", but fair enough.

I don't think it gets in the way of the broader point which is that things termed non functional requirements actually do include function.

Aha, thanks, now I don't like the term nonprofit either!!

I think that's only because you define the color as not having any function.

Actually, color does do something. It communicates meaning. It has a certain amount of visibility. To the extent it communicates danger, prestige, warning, etc., it's signalling bystanders to get out of the way, to let the pros perform their work, etc. that's performing a needed function. Maybe you could choose yellow instead, but red is the standard meaning, so red works.

This is why I don't like "NFR" -- it implies you can separate one set of things into "functions" but actually, all the other things are partly about doing something as well. In fact, we often wonder about features in nature, like Zebra stripes, and look for what function they perform.

I think the worst term I've ever heard is Non Functional Requirements (NFRs)

"Non" means the opposite, so the opposite of functional is stuff that doesn't work. I have a non-functional bridge to sell you, a non-car (no engine, no wheels), a non-profit (there's no profit), a non-smoker, non-existent.

Also, function is much broader in meaning, it's how one thing relates to another (a function of), an assigned role (perform the functions), what something's purpose is, and a sequence of steps. Creating compatibility is actually a purpose, for example.

Hence everything is related to function. To claim that some things can be labelled properties and hence "other" than functions, is brain-dead. An audit trail is not a property as opposed to a function, something has to actually do the function and purpose of auditing. Efficiency isn't an NFR, the system probably won't even work if it isn't sufficiently efficient, like the structure of a bridge. Accessibility isn't the opposite of function nor unrelated to function -- you literally have to change a lot of things and how they work, to provide accessibility.

The term Non-Functional Requirements is brain damage, as it implies you can just separate out all that "other" stuff to a separate category. Much better terms could be used. As a term it adds nothing. It's a non-term.

I gather that open plan offices, when first proposed, were sold on the basis of a time and motion calculation about how much money the company would save from people not spending time opening and closing doors.

Commuting I can kinda get along with, if there's some walking, people watching, variety of weather and scenery, but open plan offices (with or without cubicles) are hell. Utter hell. The very definition of hell. You're given one requirement, to sit quietly and be focused and productive, and the whole environment is made to work against you. Hell.

I wish there were better labels than left and right. Often the issue is about authoritarian versus the enlightenment i.e., governments constrained by reason, fair laws, freedom of thought, etc.

Then, when we can be reasonably sure that we're living in a modern enlightened state, we can analyse whether a problem is more caused by the system (left) or by the individual (right).

But if the issue is something like where, this or that free speech should be allowed, that's not a left versus right thing, it's that one of the two in the particular debate are being more authoritarian or less reasonable than the other.

Both the left and right and made of a mixture of people -- there's some authoritarians on both sides.

There's a percentage of people who want to find ways to exploit others. Ethics and morals are not things we are naturally born with in fully developed forms, they start out at simpler stages. Many people grow past the exploitative stage, but many also don't. So there's always going to be a certain amount of exploitation to varying degrees. If we have a WWIII and return to a Mad Max style existence, exploitation and strength would be the highest morality available.

I gather the same is happening to the NHS. Private companies get contracts to do the easy profitable procedures, and leave the complex difficult cases with the ever more pressured NHS.

They're not even particularly expensive or big enterprises. I'd add something about left and right spin but someone somewhere will get offended. Like, we need commercial managers because of public waste, or, we need people to stop being wasteful consumers who deny climate change -- just maintain the infrastructure please.

I agree, the story here isn't that a common web app had bugs which are now fixed, it's that the system design is fundamentally careless, even with high value and high quantity real world targets.

I agree. As someone put it, we may have an Indian culture and a British culture, we don't have an Indian science and a British science, each with their own laws of physics and different fundamental constants.

Some artefacts are more about objective reality and some more about subjective or cultural realities, and I agree, a world map is more of an objective reality -- otherwise, next we'll also be complaining about which colour was used to fill in each country, rather than the colour being a visual aid.

Likewise this weird thing of banning the words "master" and "slave" as analogies for peripherals. Playing semantic games isn't going to stop real world human trafficking.

Maybe there's lots of people who want to feel like they're activists, but because the real problems are tough and need highly capable people, the activists just do games with semantics and trivialities? Am I being mean?

Yes, exactly. And to be clear (and disambiguate from being called a troll), "woke" is really about extreme postmodernism where the practice is to assume the world is filled with hidden power structures which are oppressive, and then accuse people of unconsciously being complicit in those power structures, and -- this is the mean and stupid part -- they believe that they can see into your unconscious and point to your unconscious biases, but they never think to look into their own unconscious and check at all whether maybe they themselves are just projecting, and deluding themselves.

Liberal is generally a fairly healthy modern thing, where people are individuals with a right to freedom and happiness, and sure you can argue about things like taxes and personal responsibility, and maybe a bit more or a bit less of one or the other. It certainly shouldn't have to be an all out war.

But "woke" liberal is the destruction of liberal because it believes there's oppression everywhere, so much so that many will say they hate America or that USA should not exist, etc. which ignores that in the grand scheme of things, USA isn't that bad, it's a fairly free modern state (with room for improvement), compared to the rest of the world.