Ad-hockery

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The Jargon File Parts of this article are based on the Jargon File, v. 4.4.7, a public domain document of hacker jargon.

ad-hockery: /ad·hok'@r·ee/ n.

[Purdue]

1. Gratuitous assumptions made inside certain programs, esp. expert systems, which lead to the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior but are in fact entirely arbitrary. For example, fuzzy-matching of input tokens that might be typing errors against a symbol table can make it look as though a program knows how to spell.
2. Special-case code to cope with some awkward input that would otherwise cause a program to choke, presuming normal inputs are dealt with in some cleaner and more regular way.

Also called ad-hackery, ad-hocity (/ad-hos'@-tee/), ad-crockery. See also ELIZA effect.

This is ad-hockery in action.

(The next cartoon in the Crunchly saga is 74-08-18. The previous one is 73-07-29.)

Sources

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