> Performant is not an adjective, it is a noun. "One who performs".
It has been used as a noun, but rarely. You are thinking of the -ant formation seen in informant: one who informs. But this is not the only -ant in English, and it is not the one used here.
That which is resistant, resists well; it offers a good amount of resistance. Those who are insistent, insist strongly; they make plenty of insistence. That which is compliant, complies fully; it is very much in compliance.
That which is performant, performs well; it offers (a) good performance.
As to what good performance is:
> Software can perform well at its job (not crash, get the correct answer) but may not perform efficiently (takes a long time, has unbounded resource use, uses a brute force pattern).
This is a reasonable objection—I agree with it, wanting speech to be plain—but here is something to oppose it: I suspect that just about everyone who clicked on this article, including the two of us, knew precisely what the author wanted the word to mean, even if they had an objection to that use of the word. Performant has sprung to life, and it describes an efficient performance.
As for what I think of the word: the English language is already rich with others which would do just as well, which is probably why this one seems so jargony. It is one of those technical words that sounds more like a social signal—"I know what I'm talking about"—than something precise: "This is what I'm talking about."
It has been used as a noun, but rarely. You are thinking of the -ant formation seen in informant: one who informs. But this is not the only -ant in English, and it is not the one used here.
That which is resistant, resists well; it offers a good amount of resistance. Those who are insistent, insist strongly; they make plenty of insistence. That which is compliant, complies fully; it is very much in compliance.
That which is performant, performs well; it offers (a) good performance.
As to what good performance is:
> Software can perform well at its job (not crash, get the correct answer) but may not perform efficiently (takes a long time, has unbounded resource use, uses a brute force pattern).
This is a reasonable objection—I agree with it, wanting speech to be plain—but here is something to oppose it: I suspect that just about everyone who clicked on this article, including the two of us, knew precisely what the author wanted the word to mean, even if they had an objection to that use of the word. Performant has sprung to life, and it describes an efficient performance.
As for what I think of the word: the English language is already rich with others which would do just as well, which is probably why this one seems so jargony. It is one of those technical words that sounds more like a social signal—"I know what I'm talking about"—than something precise: "This is what I'm talking about."