The absolute worst is some thing I can't remember the real name of right now - I thought it was generic programming but it doesn't seem to be it. It doesn't connotate the meaning in the slightest, and even connotated something other than what it was. It was just storing a matrix or array of past return values of a function to reuse. It feels like I'm having a Mandella moment.
Are you thinking of dynamic programming? It's the most poorly named thing in CS, in my opinion. The name tells you absolutely nothing about what it is, and IIRC the name "dynamic" was chosen because it's difficult to use as a pejorative.
Memoization? Or dynamic programming? The latter is a funny story:
> ... Thus, I thought dynamic programming was a good name. It was something not even a Congressman could object to. So I used it as an umbrella for my activities.
