kludge

3 definitions found

kludge - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  kludge
      n 1: a badly assembled collection of parts hastily assembled to
           serve some particular purpose (often used to refer to
           computing systems or software that has been badly put
           together)

kludge - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  kludge
  
     <jargon> /kluhj/ (From the old Scots "kludgie" meaning an
     outside toilet) A Scottish engineering term for anything added
     in an ad hoc (and possibly unhygenic!) manner.  At some point
     during the Second World War, Scottish engineers met Americans
     and the meaning, spelling and pronunciation of kludge became
     confused with that of "kluge".
  
     The spelling "kludge" was apparently popularised by the
     "Datamation" cited below which defined it as "An ill-assorted
     collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing
     whole."
  
     The result of this tangled history is a mess; in 1993, many
     (perhaps even most) hackers pronounce the word /klooj/ but
     spell it "kludge" (compare the pronunciation drift of mung).
     Some observers consider this appropriate in view of its
     meaning.
  
     ["How to Design a Kludge", Jackson Granholme, Datamation,
     February 1962, pp. 30-31].
  
     [Jargon File]
  
     (1998-12-09)
  

kludge - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  kludge
  
  
     1. /kluhj/ n. Incorrect (though regrettably common) spelling of
     kluge (US). These two words have been confused in American usage
     since the early 1960s, and widely confounded in Great Britain since
     the end of World War II.
  
     2. [TMRC] A crock that works. (A long-ago Datamation article by
     Jackson Granholme similarly said: "An ill-assorted collection of
     poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.")
  
     3. v. To use a kludge to get around a problem. "I've kludged around
  it
     for now, but I'll fix it up properly later."
  
     This word appears to have derived from Scots kludge or kludgie for a
     common toilet, via British military slang. It apparently became
     confused with U.S. kluge during or after World War II; some Britons
     from that era use both words in definably different ways, but kluge
     is now uncommon in Great Britain. `Kludge' in Commonwealth hackish
     differs in meaning from `kluge' in that it lacks the positive senses;
     a kludge is something no Commonwealth hacker wants to be associated
     too closely with. Also, `kludge' is more widely known in British
     mainstream slang than `kluge' is in the U.S.