Spelling -- hotfix, hot-fix, hot fix ...

Question

It's not directly programming related, admittedly, but at some point most software's has bugs that need to be fixed "now. Really now. No it can't wait."

And a debate's opened up internally on exactly how hotfix/hot-fix/hot fix should be spelt: i.e., two words, one word, hyphenated.

Googling around there doesnt' seem to be any consistency. MS refers to both "hotfix" and "hot-fix", wikipedia says "hotfix". Yet I've also seen "hot fix".

At the end of the day it probably really doesn't matter. But wondering if any folk had strong feelings one way or the other about it... :-) At the end of the day, it's a term that gets written into release notes so being consistent is probably more important than how it's spelt.

Answer 1

Well, here is the indisputable answer:

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=%22hot+fix%22&word2=%22hotfix%22

Answer 2

Hotfix. It's a single word, I see no reason for hyphenation or a space.

Answer 3

They all intend mean the same thing. Debating semantics over hyphens that don't change semantics is probably meaningless :)

I suppose thinking about it more though I would go for 'hotfix', as 'hot fix' could mean a really good fix:

Boy oh Boy Jimmy! That was a hot fix you just did! Fwahhhhhhh! Hot hot hot!

As supposed to

OMGTZL! Zounds! We need a hotfix for our softwheres right now!

Someone with a better mastery of the Queens English could probably point you to an explanation on what a hyphen means. Does it describe a property of the following word or is it just a silly little line that does nothing.