Thinko

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Thinko or braino is a computer science slang term for a mistake in the writing of a program that arises from the temporary disruption of the thought process, typically leading to a bug.

The word thinko is a portmanteau between the verb think, implying that the mistake was in the thought process itself, and the earlier slang term typo, short for "typographical error", implying that the mistake would be entirely obvious to the author if it were pointed out. (The natural back-formation to "thinkographical error" is, of course, nonsensical—"cognitive error" would be better.)

A typical example would be the use of an idiom or syntax taken from a computer language other than the one currently being used, or perhaps the simple inversion of a boolean test that reverses the intended meaning.

[edit] Example

In the following hypothetical C program, the author wants to exit an endless loop as soon as a condition occurs

 while (1) {
     // When we got data valid data, continue with the program
     if (DataArrived()) {
       ProcessData();
       if (DataIsValid()) continue;
     }
 }

In this case, the thinko consists of the author confusing "continue with the rest of program" with the C statement continue, which re-starts the current loop, resulting in an endless loop. What the author wants, is "breaking from this loop", ergo he should have used break instead.

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