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3.0 KiB
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18 lines
3.0 KiB
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>crock</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../C.html" title="C"/><link rel="previous" href="crlf.html" title="crlf"/><link rel="next" href="cross-post.html" title="cross-post"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">crock</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="crlf.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">C</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="cross-post.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="crock"/><dt xmlns="" id="crock"><b>crock</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [from the American scatologism <span class="firstterm">crock of
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shit</span>] </p></dd><dd><p> 1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made
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cleaner. For example, using small integers to represent error codes
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without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, Unix
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<span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">make</span>(1)</span>,
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which returns code 139 for a process that dies due to
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<a href="../S/segfault.html"><i class="glossterm">segfault</i></a>). </p></dd><dd><p> 2. A technique that works acceptably, but which is quite prone to
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failure if disturbed in the least. For example, a too-clever programmer
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might write an assembler which mapped instruction mnemonics to numeric
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opcodes algorithmically, a trick which depends far too intimately on the
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particular bit patterns of the opcodes. (For another example of
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programming with a dependence on actual opcode values, see
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<a href="../story-of-mel.html" title="The Story of Mel">The Story of Mel'</a> in Appendix A.) Many crocks have a tightly woven,
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almost completely unmodifiable structure. See
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<a href="../K/kluge.html"><i class="glossterm">kluge</i></a>, <a href="../B/brittle.html"><i class="glossterm">brittle</i></a>. The
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adjectives <span class="firstterm">crockish</span> and <span class="firstterm">crocky</span>, and the nouns <span class="firstterm">crockishness</span> and <span class="firstterm">crockitude</span>, are also used.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="crlf.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../C.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="cross-post.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">crlf<EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>cross-post</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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