May 15, 2003

noddy

/nod´ee/ adj.

[UK: from the children's books]

1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is hello world. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. This editor's a bit noddy.

2. A program that is more or less instant to produce. In this use, the term does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields. In North America this might be called a mickey mouse program. See toy program.

Posted by Jargon File at May 15, 2003 10:36 AM

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