crock: n. [from the American scatologism `crock of shit'] 1. An
awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made
cleaner. For example, using small integers to represent error codes
without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for
example, Unix `make(1)', which returns code 139 for a process that
dies due to segfault). 2. A technique that works acceptably, but
which is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least. For
example, a too-clever programmer might write an assembler which
mapped instruction mnemonics to numeric opcodes algorithmically, a
trick which depends far too intimately on the particular bit
patterns of the opcodes. (For another example of programming with a
dependence on actual opcode values, see The Story of Mel in
Appendix A.) Many crocks have a tightly woven, almost completely
unmodifiable structure. See kluge, brittle. The adjectives
`crockish' and `crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and
`crockitude', are also used.
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