hand-hacking
1. The practice of translating a {hot spot} of a program in a
{HLL} into hand-tuned {assembly language}, as opposed to
trying to coerce the {compiler} into generating better code.
Both the term and the practice are becoming uncommon.
See {tune}, {bum}, {by hand}; synonym with {cruft}.
2. More generally, manual construction or patching of data
sets that would normally be generated by a translation utility
and interpreted by another program, and aren't really designed
to be read or modified by humans.
[{Jargon File}]
(1995-02-16)