Taste

/tāst/

[primarily MIT]

n. 1. The quality in a program that tends to be inversely proportional to the number of features, hacks, and kluges programmed into it. Also 'tasty', 'tasteful', 'tastefulness'. "This feature comes in N tasty flavors." Although 'tasteful' and 'flavorful' are essentially synonyms, 'taste' and flavor are not. Taste refers to sound judgment on the part of the creator; a program or feature can *exhibit* taste but cannot *have* taste. On the other hand, a feature can have flavor. Also, flavor has the additional meaning of 'kind' or 'variety' not shared by 'taste'. flavor is a more popular word than 'taste', though both are used.