dwimmery

English

Etymology

From DWIM +‎ -ery, influenced by dwimmer.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdwɪ.mə.ɹi/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdwɪ.mɚ.ɹi/

Noun

dwimmery (uncountable)

1. (computing, humorous) A computer program's ability to sense the user's intentions rather than work according to a well-defined specification.
   • 2005, Damian Conway, Perl Best Practices:

     This dwimmery causes the model to show that polar melting rates have absolutely no connection to world climate in general, and to rising ocean levels in particular.

   • 2005 May 6, Larry Wall, “stdio”, in perl.perl6.language (Usenet):

     I think that, as with various other parts of Perl 6, we can try to sweep all the dwimmery into one spot so that it can be easily recognized and/or avoided.

   • 2007 November 11, Michele Dondi, “Why can't you slice an array @a[3..-1]?”, in comp.lang.perl.misc (Usenet):

     The big challenge of Perl 6 is to achieve a high degree of dwimmery

Related terms

• DWIM