workaround

workaround
 n.

   1. A temporary {kluge} used to bypass, mask, or otherwise avoid a
   {bug} or {misfeature} in some system. Theoretically, workarounds are
   always replaced by {fix}es; in practice, customers often find
   themselves living with workarounds for long periods of time. "The code
   died on NUL characters in the input, so I fixed it to interpret them
   as spaces." "That's not a fix, that's a workaround!"

   2. A procedure to be employed by the user in order to do what some
   currently non-working feature should do. Hypothetical example: "Using
   META-F7 {crash}es the 4.43 build of Weemax, but as a workaround you
   can type CTRL-R, then SHIFT-F5, and delete the remaining {cruft} by
   hand."
    

workaround

   <jargon, programming> A temporary {kluge} used to bypass, mask
   or otherwise avoid a {bug} or {misfeature} in some system.
   Customers often find themselves living with workarounds for
   long periods of time rather than getting a {bug fix}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1998-06-25)