< jargon > /ad-hok'*r-ee/ (Purdue) 1. Gratuitous assumptions made inside certain programs, especially expert system s, which lead to the appearance of semi-intelligent behaviour but are in fact entirely arbitrary. For example, fuzzy-matching of input tokens that might be typing errors against a symbol table can make it look as though a program knows how to spell.
2. Special-case code to cope with some awkward input that would otherwise cause a program to fail, presuming normal inputs are dealt with in some cleaner and more regular way. Also called "ad-hackery", "ad-hocity" (/ad-hos'*-tee/), "ad-crockery".
See also ELIZA effect .
[ Jargon File ]
(1995-01-05)