Related:

• bottom-up implementation n. Hackish opposite of the techspeak term `top-down design'.
  It has been received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in increasing detail until you get to actual code....
• hot spot: n. 1. [primarily used by C/UNIX programmers, but spreading] It is received wisdom that in most programs, less than 10% of the code eats 90% of the execution time
  if one were to graph instruction visits versus code addresses, one would typically see a few huge spikes amidst a lot of low-level noise....
• code grinder: n. 1. A {suit}-wearing minion of the sort hired in legion strength by banks and insurance companies to implement payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakable horrors.
  In its native habitat, the code grinder often removes the suit jacket to reveal an underplumage consisting of button-down shirt (starch optional) and a tie....
• clean: 1. adj. Used of hardware or software desig
  implies `elegance in the small', that is, a design or implementation that may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the outside....
• aive: adj. Untutored in the perversities of some particular program or system
  one who still tries to do things in an intuitive way, rather than the right way (in really good designs these coincide, but most designs aren't `really good' in the appropriate sense)....
• Wrong Thing: n. A design, action, or decision that is clearly incorrect or inappropriate.
  Often capitalized; always emphasized in speech as if capitalized....
• operating system:: [techspeak] n. (Often abbreviated `OS') The foundation software of a machine, of course
  hat which schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user between applications....
• creationism: n. The (false) belief that large, innovative software designs can be completely specified in advance and then painlessly magicked out of the void by the normal efforts of a team of normally talented programmers.
  In fact, experience has shown repeatedly that good designs arise only from evolutionary, exploratory interaction between one (or at most a small handful of) exceptionally able designer(s) and an active user population -- and that the first try at a big new idea is always wrong....
• one knives and bearskins: [from the Star Trek Classic episode "The City on the Edge of Forever"] n.
  A term traditionally used to describe (and deprecate) computing environments that are grotesquely primitive in light of what is known about good ways to design things....