Often adduced as the reason or motivation for expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack. For example, MacLISP had features for reading and printing Roman numerals, which were installed purely for hack value. See href="module.php?name=Lexikon&file=search&eid=1&query=display hack">display hack for one method of computing hack value, but this cannot really be explained, only experienced. As Louis Armstrong once said when asked to explain jazz: "Man, if you gotta ask you' ll never know." (Feminists please note Fats Waller' s explanation of rhythm: "Lady, if you got to ask you ain' t got it.")
