kluge

jargon /klooj/, /kluhj/ (From German "klug" /kloog/ - clever

and Scottish "kludge") 1. A Rube Goldberg (or Heath

Robinson) device, whether in hardware or software.

The spelling "kluge" (as opposed to "kludge") was used in

connection with computers as far back as the mid-1950s and, at

that time, was used exclusively of *hardware* kluges.

2. programming A clever programming trick intended to solve

a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not clear, manner.

Often used to repair bugs. Often involves ad-hockery and

verges on being a crock. In fact, the TMRC Dictionary

defined "kludge" as "a crock that works".

3. Something that works for the wrong reason.

4. (WPI) A feature that is implemented in a rude manner.

In 1947, the "New York Folklore Quarterly" reported a classic

shaggy-dog story "Murgatroyd the Kluge Maker" then current in

the Armed Forces, in which a "kluge" was a complex and

puzzling artifact with a trivial function. Other sources

report that "kluge" was common Navy slang in the WWII era for

any piece of electronics that worked well on shore but

consistently failed at sea.

However, there is reason to believe this slang use may be a

decade older. Several respondents have connected it to the

brand name of a device called a "Kluge paper feeder" dating

back at least to 1935, an adjunct to mechanical printing

presses. The Kluge feeder was designed before small, cheap

electric motors and control electronics; it relied on a

fiendishly complex assortment of cams, belts, and linkages to

both power and synchronise all its operations from one motive

driveshaft. It was accordingly tempermental, subject to

frequent breakdowns, and devilishly difficult to repair - but

oh, so clever! One traditional folk etymology of "klugen"

makes it the name of a design engineer; in fact, "Kluge" is a

surname in German, and the designer of the Kluge feeder may

well have been the man behind this myth.

TMRC and the MIT hacker culture of the early 1960s seems to

have developed in a milieu that remembered and still used some

WWII military slang (see also foobar). It seems likely that

"kluge" came to MIT via alumni of the many military

electronics projects run in Cambridge during the war (many in

MIT's venerable Building 20, which housed TMRC until the

building was demolished in 1999).

[Jargon File]

(2002-10-02)