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77 lines
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>kluge</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../K.html" title="K"/><link rel="previous" href="kludge.html" title="kludge"/><link rel="next" href="kluge-around.html" title="kluge around"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">kluge</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="kludge.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">K</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="kluge-around.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="kluge"/><dt xmlns="" id="kluge"><b>kluge</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/klooj/</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [from the German ‘klug’, clever; poss. related to
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Polish & Russian ‘klucz’ (a key, a hint, a main
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point)]</p></dd><dd><p> 1. <span class="grammar">n.</span> A Rube Goldberg (or Heath
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Robinson) device, whether in hardware or software. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. <span class="grammar">n.</span> A clever programming trick
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intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not clear,
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manner. Often used to repair bugs. Often involves
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<a href="../A/ad-hockery.html"><i class="glossterm">ad-hockery</i></a> and verges on being a
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<a href="../C/crock.html"><i class="glossterm">crock</i></a>. </p></dd><dd><p> 3. <span class="grammar">n.</span> Something that works for
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the wrong reason. </p></dd><dd><p> 4. <span class="grammar">vt.</span> To insert a kluge into a
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program. “<span class="quote">I've kluged this routine to get around that weird bug, but
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there's probably a better way.</span>” </p></dd><dd><p> 5. [WPI] <span class="grammar">n.</span> A feature that is
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implemented in a <a href="../R/rude.html"><i class="glossterm">rude</i></a> manner.</p></dd><dd><p>Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling
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‘kludge’. Reports from <a href="../O/old-fart.html"><i class="glossterm">old fart</i></a>s are
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consistent that ‘kluge’ was the original spelling, reported
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around computers as far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, used
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exclusively of <span class="emphasis"><em>hardware</em></span> kluges. In 1947, the
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<i class="citetitle">New York Folklore Quarterly</i> reported a classic
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shaggy-dog story ‘Murgatroyd the Kluge Maker’ then current in
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the Armed Forces, in which a ‘kluge’ was a complex and puzzling
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artifact with a trivial function. Other sources report that
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‘kluge’ was common Navy slang in the WWII era for any piece of
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electronics that worked well on shore but consistently failed at
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sea.</p><p>However, there is reason to believe this slang use may be a decade
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older. Several respondents have connected it to the brand name of a device
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called a “<span class="quote">Kluge paper feeder</span>”, an adjunct to mechanical
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printing presses. Legend has it that the Kluge feeder was designed before
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small, cheap electric motors and control electronics; it relied on a
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fiendishly complex assortment of cams, belts, and linkages to both power
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and synchronize all its operations from one motive driveshaft. It was
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accordingly temperamental, subject to frequent breakdowns, and devilishly
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difficult to repair — but oh, so clever! People who tell this story
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also aver that ‘Kluge’ was the name of a design
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engineer.</p><p>There is in fact a Brandtjen & Kluge Inc., an old family business
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that manufactures printing equipment — interestingly, their name is
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pronounced <span class="pronunciation">/kloo<6F>gee/</span>!
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Henry Brandtjen, president of the firm, told me (ESR, 1994) that his
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company was co-founded by his father and an engineer named Kluge <span class="pronunciation">/kloo<6F>gee/</span>, who built and co-designed
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the original Kluge automatic feeder in 1919. Mr. Brandtjen claims,
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however, that this was a <span class="emphasis"><em>simple</em></span> device (with only four
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cams); he says he has no idea how the myth of its complexity took hold.
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Other correspondents differ with Mr. Brandtjen's history of the device and
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his allegation that it was a simple rather than complex one, but agree that
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the Kluge automatic feeder was the most likely source of the
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folklore.</p><p><a href="../T/TMRC.html"><i class="glossterm">TMRC</i></a> and the MIT hacker culture of the early
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'60s seems to have developed in a milieu that remembered and still used
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some WWII military slang (see also <a href="../F/foobar.html"><i class="glossterm">foobar</i></a>). It
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seems likely that ‘kluge’ came to MIT via alumni of the many
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military electronics projects that had been located in Cambridge (many in
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MIT's venerable Building 20, in which <a href="../T/TMRC.html"><i class="glossterm">TMRC</i></a> is also
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located) during the war.</p><p>The variant ‘kludge’ was apparently popularized by the
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<a href="../D/Datamation.html"><i class="glossterm">Datamation</i></a> article mentioned under
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<a href="kludge.html"><i class="glossterm">kludge</i></a>; it was titled <i class="citetitle">How to Design a
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Kludge</i> (February 1962, pp. 30, 31). This spelling was probably
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imported from Great Britain, where <a href="kludge.html"><i class="glossterm">kludge</i></a> has an
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independent history (though this fact was largely unknown to hackers on
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either side of the Atlantic before a mid-1993 debate in the Usenet group
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<tt class="systemitem">alt.folklore.computers</tt> over the
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First and Second Edition versions of this entry; everybody used to think
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<a href="kludge.html"><i class="glossterm">kludge</i></a> was just a mutation of
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<a href="kluge.html"><i class="glossterm">kluge</i></a>). It now appears that the British, having
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forgotten the etymology of their own ‘kludge’ when
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‘kluge’ crossed the Atlantic, repaid the U.S. by lobbing the
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‘kludge’ orthography in the other direction and confusing their
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American cousins' spelling!</p><p>The result of this history is a tangle. Many younger U.S. hackers
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pronounce the word as <span class="pronunciation">/klooj/</span> but
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spell it, incorrectly for its meaning and pronunciation, as
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‘kludge’. (Phonetically, consider huge, refuge, centrifuge, and
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deluge as opposed to sludge, judge, budge, and fudge. Whatever its
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failings in other areas, English spelling is perfectly consistent about
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this distinction.) British hackers mostly learned <span class="pronunciation">/kluhj/</span> orally, use it in a restricted
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negative sense and are at least consistent. European hackers have mostly
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learned the word from written American sources and tend to pronounce it
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<span class="pronunciation">/kluhj/</span> but use the wider
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American meaning!</p><p>Some observers consider this mess appropriate in view of the word's
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meaning.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="kludge.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../K.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="kluge-around.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">kludge<EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>kluge around</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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