footgun

/FOOT-gun/ · noun · Hacker Culture · Origin: 2000

Definitions

  1. A feature, API, or tool that makes it dangerously easy for users to shoot themselves in the foot — causing bugs, data loss, or outages through normal, unsurprising usage. The term implies the damage is the tool's fault for poor design, not the user's fault for misuse. JavaScript's == operator and rm -rf with no guardrails are canonical footguns.

    In plain English: A tool or feature that makes it way too easy to accidentally break something — the blame is on the design, not the user.

    Example: Making the 'delete all production data' button the same color and size as 'save' is a textbook footgun — someone will click it by accident.

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