Spike




<jargon> To defeat a selection mechanism by introducing a (sometimes temporary) device that forces a specific result. The word is used in several industries; telephone engineers refer to spiking a relay by inserting a pin to hold the relay in either the closed or open state, and railroaders refer to spiking a track switch so that it cannot be moved.

In programming environments it normally refers to a temporary change, usually for testing purposes (as opposed to a permanent change, which would be called hard-coded).



< Previous Terms Terms Containing spike Next Terms >
Spice Lisp
SPID
spider
Spiderweb
spiffy
capacitor
dirty power
gray code
hot spot
power hit
spill
spin
spiral model
SPIT
SPITBOL