/nod' ee/ [UK: from the children' s books] 1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is hello, world. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn' t worth using. "This editor' s a bit noddy." 2. A program that is more or less instant to produce. In this use, the term does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I' ll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." In North America this might be called a mickey mouse program. See toy program. 3. A simple (hence the name) language to handle text and interaction on the Memotech home computer. Has died with the machine. [Jargon File]
