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voodoo programming n.
[from George Bush's "voodoo economics">[ 1. The use by guess or cookbook of an [obscure] or [hairy] system, feature, or algorithm that one does not truly understand. The implication is that the technique may not work, and if it doesn't, one will never know why. Almost synonymous with [black magic], except that black magic typically isn't documented and nobody understands it. Compare [magic], [deep magic], [heavy wizardry], [rain dance], [cargo cult programming], [wave a dead chicken]. 2. Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling everything.
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