title: What does "performant" software actually mean?
body: <p>I see it used a lot, but haven't seen a definition that makes complete sense. </p>
  
  <p><a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/performant" rel="noreferrer">Wiktionary says</a> "characterized by an adequate or excellent level of performance or efficiency", which isn't much help.</p>
  
  <p>Initially I though performant just meant "fast", but others seem to think it's also about stability, code quality, memory use/footprint, or some combination of all those.</p>
  
  <p>I think this is a "real" question - but if enough people reckon this is a subjective question, that's an answer in itself.</p>