crock
:crock: n. [from the American scatologism `crock of shit'] 1. An awkward
feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner. For
example, using small integers to represent error codes without the
program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, Unix
`make(1)', which returns code 139 for a process that dies due to
segfault
. 2. A technique that works acceptably, but which is quite
prone to failure if disturbed in the least. For example, a too-clever
programmer might write an assembler which mapped instruction mnemonics
to numeric opcodes algorithmically, a trick which depends far too
intimately on the particular bit patterns of the opcodes. (For another
example of programming with a dependence on actual opcode values, see
The Story of Mel
in Appendix A.) Many crocks have a tightly woven,
almost completely unmodifiable structure. See kluge
, brittle
The
adjectives `crockish' and `crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and
`crockitude', are also used.
Jargon File Version 4.3.1, 29 JUN 2001 =
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