slop: n. 1. A one-sided fudge factor, that is, an allowance
for error but in only one of two directions. For example, if you
need a piece of wire 10 feet long and have to guess when you cut it,
you make very sure to cut it too long, by a large amount if
necessary, rather than too short by even a little bit, because you
can always cut off the slop but you can't paste it back on again.
When discrete quantities are involved, slop is often introduced to
avoid the possibility of being on the losing side of a fencepost
error. 2. The percentage of `extra' code generated by a compiler
over the size of equivalent assembler code produced by
hand-hacking; i.e., the space (or maybe time) you lose because you
didn't do it yourself. This number is often used as a measure of
the goodness of a compiler; slop below 5% is very good, and 10% is
usually acceptable. With modern compiler technology, esp. on RISC
machines, the compiler's slop may actually be _negative_; that is,
humans may be unable to generate code as good. This is one of the
reasons assembler programming is no longer common.
![[prev]](../gif/left.gif){kind=small}
![[up]](../gif/up.gif){kind=small}
![[next]](../gif/right.gif){kind=small}