line 666

jargon (Christian eschatological myth) The notional line of

source at which a program fails for obscure reasons, implying

either that *somebody* is out to get it (when you are the

programmer), or that it richly deserves to be got (when you

are not).

E.g. "It works when I trace through it, but seems to crash on

line 666 when I run it." "What happens is that whenever a

large batch comes through, mmdf dies on the Line of the Beast.

Probably some twit hard-coded a buffer size."

[Jargon File]

(1999-03-01)