May 15, 2003

firefighting

n.

1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden operational problems. An opposite of hacking. Been hacking your new newsreader? No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent the whole afternoon fighting fires.

2. The act of throwing lots of manpower and late nights at a project, esp. to get it out before deadline. See also gang bang, Mongolian Hordes technique; however, the term firefighting connotes that the effort is going into chasing bugs rather than adding features.

Posted by Jargon File at May 15, 2003 10:48 AM

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