the.com/stub
The code promise: 'I'll do the real work later' — later being optimistic.
means A minimal placeholder piece of code that stands in for a function or feature not yet built, just enough to let everything else compile and run.
from From Old English/Old Norse roots meaning a stump or short remaining piece — like a tree stub left after the trunk's cut down, or a ticket stub, the torn-off remainder. Programmers borrowed that sense of 'the small leftover bit standing in for the whole' to name code that's just a stump of the real thing, waiting for the rest of the tree to grow.
- origin
- from stub as in cut-off remnant
- common use
- placeholder function returning fake data
- danger
- ships to production more than admitted
- cousin
- mock, but with lower self-esteem