As used by a
hacker, implies that some system, program,
person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be
not worth the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives
does not imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of
goals or design criteria fatally incompatible with the
speaker's. This usage is more an aesthetic and engineering
judgment than a moral one in the mainstream sense. "We
thought about adding a
Blue Glue interface but decided it
was too evil to deal with." "
TECO is neat, but it can be
pretty evil if you're prone to typos." Often pronounced with
the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/.
(1994-12-12)