What do you call a bugfix which, you know very well, doesn't fix the root cause?

In medical terms, this is called a "sympto开发者_如何学Gomatic treatment". What is it called in the context of software development?

Hack (or possibly dirty hack)

"Workaround" is the term I would suggest.

It's called a kludge.

"Patch" or "temporary fix".

I tend to call them "band-aids". Feel free to replace with your region's most-known brand of adhesive bandages, if you like. :)