cough and die

<jargon> barf. Connotes that the program is throwing its hands up by design rather than because of a bug or oversight. "The parser saw a control-A in its input where it was looking for a printable, so it coughed and died."

Compare die, die horribly, scream and die.

[Jargon File]

Nearby terms:
Cost/Schedule Control System Criteria « COTS « Cougar « cough and die » countable » countably many » counted