Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Wrong Thing

A design, action, or decision that is clearly incorrect or inappropriate is often termed a Wrong Thing.

Often capitalized; always emphasized in speech as if capitalized. The opposite of the Right Thing; more generally, anything that is not the Right Thing. In cases where 'the good is the enemy of the best', the merely good -- although good -- is nevertheless the Wrong Thing. For example: "In C, the default is for module-level declarations to be visible everywhere, rather than just within the module. This is clearly the Wrong Thing."

This article or an earlier version of it came from the Jargon File.