bit twiddling

Programming at a very low level (manipulating the bits and bytes). Also may refer to spending excessive time on unimportant refinements. See hacker.

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1.		bit twiddling - (pejorative) An exercise in tuning (see tune) in which incredible amounts of time and effort go to produce little noticeable improvement, often with the result that the code becomes incomprehensible.
2.		bit twiddling - Aimless small modification to a program, especially for some pointless goal.
3.		bit twiddling - bit bashing, especially used for the act of frobbing the device control register of a peripheral in an attempt to get it back to a known state.