joe code

/joh kohd`/ , n. 1. Code that is overly tense and unmaintainable. Perl may
be a handy program, but if you look at the source, it's complete joe code.
2. Badly written, possibly buggy code. Correspondents wishing to remain
anonymous have fingered a particular Joe at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
and observed that usage has drifted slightly; the original sobriquet Joe
code was intended in sense 1. 1994 update: This term has now generalized to
name code , used to designate code with distinct characteristics traceable
to its author. This section doesn't check for a NULL return from malloc()!
Oh. No wonder! It's Ed code!. Used most often with a programmer who has left
the shop and thus is a convenient scapegoat for anything that is wrong with
the project.