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}.

:Ada:: /n./ A {{Pascal}}-descended language that has been made
mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the
Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that,
technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind
of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult
to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle
(one common description is "The PL/I of the 1980s"). Hackers
find Ada's exception-handling and inter-process communication
features particularly hilarious. Ada Lovelace (the daughter of
Lord Byron who became the world's first programmer while
cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his mechanical
computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly blanch
at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest
thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good
small language screaming to get out from inside its vast,
{elephantine} bulk.

:adger: /aj'r/ /vt./ [UCLA mutant of {nadger}, poss. from
the middle name of an infamous {tenured graduate student}] To
make a bonehead move with consequences that could have been
foreseen with even slight mental effort. E.g., "He started
removing files and promptly adgered the whole project". Compare
{dumbass attack}.

:admin: /ad-min'/ /n./ Short for `administrator'; very