Weeds

A weed is a program (or anything else in a system) that does no one any good, but that uses such a small amount of resources that it's often not cost-effective to do anything about it. Eventually, weeds start to accumulate, and it's time to get out the clippers. Or the herbicide.

Also see: freeloaders, Flying Dutchmen.

weeble = W = weenie

weeds n.

1. Refers to development projects or algorithms that have no possible relevance or practical application. Comes from `off in the weeds'. Used in phrases like "lexical analysis for microcode is serious weeds...." 2. At CDC/ETA before its demise, the phrase `go off in the weeds' was equivalent mainstream hackerdom's jump off into never-never land.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.