voice-net
= V =
VR
voodoo programming n.
[from George Bush's "voodoo
economics"] 1. The use by guess or cookbook of an obscure or
hairy system, feature, or algorithm that one does not truly
understand. The implication is that the technique may not work,
and if it doesn't, one will never know why. Almost synonymous with
black magic, except that black magic typically isn't
documented and nobody understands it. Compare magic,
deep magic, heavy wizardry, rain dance, cargo cult programming, wave a dead chicken, SCSI voodoo.
2. Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but they try
anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling
everything.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.