I. n. II. v. a.

(crocks)

[American scatologism "crock of shit"] 1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner. For example, using small integers to represent error codes without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, Unix "make(1)", which returns code 139 for a process that dies due to segfault). 2. A technique that works acceptably, but which is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least. For example, a too-clever programmer might write an assembler which mapped instruction mnemonics to numeric opcodes algorithmically, a trick which depends far too intimately on the particular bit patterns of the opcodes. (For another example of programming with a dependence on actual opcode values, see The Story of Mel.) Many crocks have a tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure. See kluge, brittle. The adjectives "crockish" and "crocky", and the nouns "crockishness" and "crockitude", are also used. [Jargon File]

Crock is an American comic strip created by Bill Rechin and Brant Parker depicting the French Foreign Legion. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, the strip began in 1975 and ended in May 2012.

A crock is a pottery container sometimes used for food and water, synonymous with the word pot, and sometimes used for chemicals. Derivative terms include crockery and crock-pot.

Artemis Crock is a fictional comic book character, appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. First appearing in Infinity, Inc.