Finally, note that many words in hacker jargon have to be understood as
members of sets of comparatives. This is especially true of the adjectives
and nouns used to describe the beauty and functional quality of code. Here is
an approximately correct spectrum:
monstrosity brain-damage screw bug lose misfeature crock kluge hack win
feature elegance perfection
The last is spoken of as a mythical absolute, approximated but never
actually attained. Another similar scale is used for describing the
reliability of software:
broken flaky dodgy fragile brittle solid robust bulletproof
armor-plated
Note, however, that ‘dodgy’ is primarily Commonwealth
Hackish (it is rare in the U.S., where ‘squirrelly’ may be more
common) and may change places with ‘flaky’ for some
speakers.
Coinages for describing lossage seem to call
forth the very finest in hackish linguistic inventiveness; it has been truly
said that hackers have even more words for equipment failures than Yiddish has
for obnoxious people.
