programming (Or "endless loop") Where a piece of program is
executed repeatedly with no hope of stopping. This is nearly
always because of a
bug, e.g. if the condition for exiting
the loop is wrong, though it may be intentional if the program
continuously until it is turned off. The programmer may also
intend the program to run until interrupted by the user. An
endless loop may also be used as a last-resort error handler
when no other action is appropriate. This is used in some
A program executing an infinite loop is said to
spin or
around the axle".
A standard joke has been made about each generation's exemplar
of the ultra-fast machine: "The Cray-3 is so fast it can
execute an infinite loop in under 2 seconds!"
(1996-05-11)