HACK VALUE

Crosswords: HACK VALUE

Specialty definitions using "HACK VALUE": DECtape ♦ hack value ♦ neat hack. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Specialty Definition: Hack value

A notion among hackers that something is worth doing or is interesting. This is something that hackers often feel intuitively about a problem or solution; the feeling approaches the mystical for some.

Doing something others think impossible, and doing it with finesse, cleverness, or brilliance implies the solution has hack value.

Picking a lock has hack value. Smashing a lock does not.

Proving Fermat's last theorem by linking together most of modern mathematics has hack value. Solving the four color map problem by exhaustively trying all possibilities does not. Writing a program to solve the four-color map problem exhaustively, however, does have hack value (as generating all the possibilities is itself potentially difficult).

Specialty Definition: HACK VALUE

Domain	Definition
Computing	Hack value n. Often adduced as the reason or motivation for expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack. For example, MacLISP had features for reading and printing Roman numerals, which were installed purely for hack value. See display hack for one method of computing hack value, but this cannot really be explained, only experienced. As Louis Armstrong once said when asked to explain jazz: "Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know." (Feminists please note Fats Waller's explanation of rhythm: "Lady, if you got to ask, you ain't got it."). Source: Jargon File.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Anagrams: HACK VALUE

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-c-e-h-k-l-u-v"
	-3 letters: hackle, huckle.
	-4 letters: akela, alack, calve, caulk, chalk, chela, clave, hacek, halva, halve, leach, lehua, uveal, vacua, value.
	-5 letters: ache, alae, alec, cake, calk, caul, cave, clue, cuke, each, hack, hake, hale, haul, have, heal, heck, huck, hula, hulk, kale, kava, lace, lack, lake, lakh, lava, lave, leak, lech, leku, leva, luce, luck.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.