Shotgun debugging

Shotgun debugging is a process of making of relatively undirected changes to software in the hope that a bug will be perturbed out of existence. This almost never works except in very simple programs, or when used as an attempt to work around programming language features that one may be using improperly; it usually introduces more bugs.

It can be likened to the software equivalent of Easter egging.

This page or an earlier version of it comes from the Jargon file.