Critique Glossary

Browse 7 critique terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

7 Critique Terms

Anti-Pattern
A common but counterproductive solution pattern that tends to create more problems than it solves. In engineering culture, calling something an anti-pattern...
Cargo Cult Science
A term popularized by Richard Feynman for work that imitates the appearance of scientific rigor without the substance of honest testing and self-correction. In...
Feature Factory
A team or organization optimized to ship features continuously without enough concern for outcomes, usability, maintenance, or strategic coherence. It is...
Meritocracy Myth
The critique that organizations often claim pure merit-based advancement while ignoring bias, politics, and structural advantage.
Patent Troll
A pejorative term for an entity that acquires or asserts patents primarily to extract licensing fees or settlements rather than to build products. Startups...
Resume Driven Development
Building or choosing technology mainly because it looks impressive on a resume rather than because it solves the actual problem well.
Self-Critique
A step in which an AI system critiques its own output against a rubric, policy, or reasoning standard before revising it. Self-critique is often used in...

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