Often adduced as the reason or motivation for expending effort
toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal
is a hack. For example, MacLISP had features for reading and printing
Roman numerals, which were installed purely for hack value. See
display hack for one method of computing hack value,
but this cannot really be explained, only experienced. As Louis Armstrong
once said when asked to explain jazz: Man, if you gotta ask you'll
never know.
(Feminists please note Fats Waller's explanation of
rhythm: Lady, if you got to ask, you ain't got it.
)