Brittle Adj.
Said Of Software That Is Functional But
Easily Broken By Changes In Operating Environment Or Configuration,
Or By Any Minor Tweak To The Software Itself.
Said of software that is functional but
easily broken by changes in operating environment or configuration,
or by any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system
that responds inappropriately and disastrously to abnormal but
expected external stimuli; e.g., a file system that is usually
totally scrambled by a power failure is said to be brittle. This
term is often used to describe the results of a research effort
that were never intended to be robust, but it can be applied to
commercial software, which (due to closed-source development)
displays the quality far more often than it ought to. Oppose
robust.
brute force adj.
Describes a primitive programming style
one in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing
power instead of using his or her own intelligence to simplify the
problem, often ignoring problems of scale and applying naive
methods suited to small problems directly to large ones....