noddy

/nod'ee/ [UK: from the children's books] 1. Small and

un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are

often written by people learning a new language or system.

The archetypal noddy program is hello, world. Noddy code

may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler.

May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it

isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy."

2. A program that is more or less instant to produce. In this

use, the term does not necessarily connote uselessness, but

describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written

and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a

normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk

script to dump all the first fields." In North America this

might be called a mickey mouse program. See toy program.

3. A simple (hence the name) language to handle text and

interaction on the Memotech home computer. Has died with

the machine.

[Jargon File]