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rat dance n.
[From the Dilbert comic strip of November
14, 1995] A hacking run that produces results which, while
superficially coherent, have little or nothing to do with its
original objectives. There are strong connotations that the coding
process and the objectives themselves were pretty random. (In
the original comic strip, the Ratbert is invited to dance
on Dilbert's keyboard in order to produce bugs for him to fix, and
authors a Web browser instead.) Compare Infinite-Monkey Theorem.
This term seems to have become widely recognized quite rapidly
after the original strip, a fact which testifies to Dilbert's huge
popularity among hackers. All too many find the perverse
incentives and Kafkaesque atmosphere of Dilbert's mythical
workplace reflective of their own experiences.
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