| slovo | definícia |
kluge
(encz) | kluge,těžkopádné řešení problému [slang.] Jaromír Hamala |
kluge
(foldoc) | kluge
/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. 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)
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kluge
(jargon) | kluge
/klooj/
[from the German ‘klug’, clever; poss. related to Polish & Russian ‘klucz’
(a key, a hint, a main point)]
1. n. A Rube Goldberg (or Heath Robinson) device, whether in hardware or
software.
2. n. 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.
3. n. Something that works for the wrong reason.
4. vt. To insert a kluge into a program. “I've kluged this routine to get
around that weird bug, but there's probably a better way.”
5. [WPI] n. A feature that is implemented in a rude manner.
Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling ‘kludge’.
Reports from old farts are consistent that ‘kluge’ was the original
spelling, reported around computers as far back as the mid-1950s and, at
that time, used exclusively of hardware kluges. 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”, an adjunct to mechanical printing presses. Legend
has it that 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 synchronize all
its operations from one motive driveshaft. It was accordingly
temperamental, subject to frequent breakdowns, and devilishly difficult to
repair — but oh, so clever! People who tell this story also aver that
‘Kluge’ was the name of a design engineer.
There is in fact a Brandtjen & Kluge Inc., an old family business that
manufactures printing equipment — interestingly, their name is pronounced /
kloo'gee/! Henry Brandtjen, president of the firm, told me (ESR, 1994) that
his company was co-founded by his father and an engineer named Kluge /
kloo'gee/, who built and co-designed the original Kluge automatic feeder in
1919. Mr. Brandtjen claims, however, that this was a simple device (with
only four cams); he says he has no idea how the myth of its complexity took
hold. Other correspondents differ with Mr. Brandtjen's history of the
device and his allegation that it was a simple rather than complex one, but
agree that the Kluge automatic feeder was the most likely source of the
folklore.
TMRC and the MIT hacker culture of the early '60s 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 that had been located in Cambridge (many
in MIT's venerable Building 20, in which TMRC is also located) during the
war.
The variant ‘kludge’ was apparently popularized by the Datamation article
mentioned under kludge; it was titled How to Design a Kludge (February
1962, pp. 30, 31). This spelling was probably imported from Great Britain,
where kludge has an independent history (though this fact was largely
unknown to hackers on either side of the Atlantic before a mid-1993 debate
in the Usenet group alt.folklore.computers over the First and Second
Edition versions of this entry; everybody used to think kludge was just a
mutation of kluge). It now appears that the British, having forgotten the
etymology of their own ‘kludge’ when ‘kluge’ crossed the Atlantic, repaid
the U.S. by lobbing the ‘kludge’ orthography in the other direction and
confusing their American cousins' spelling!
The result of this history is a tangle. Many younger U.S. hackers pronounce
the word as /klooj/ but spell it, incorrectly for its meaning and
pronunciation, as ‘kludge’. (Phonetically, consider huge, refuge,
centrifuge, and deluge as opposed to sludge, judge, budge, and fudge.
Whatever its failings in other areas, English spelling is perfectly
consistent about this distinction.) British hackers mostly learned /kluhj/
orally, use it in a restricted negative sense and are at least consistent.
European hackers have mostly learned the word from written American sources
and tend to pronounce it /kluhj/ but use the wider American meaning!
Some observers consider this mess appropriate in view of the word's
meaning.
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| | podobné slovo | definícia |
kluge around
(foldoc) | kluge around
To avoid a bug or difficult condition by inserting a
kluge.
Compare workaround.
[Jargon File]
(1995-03-10)
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kluge around
(jargon) | kluge around
vt.
To avoid a bug or difficult condition by inserting a kluge. Compare {
workaround}.
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kluge up
(jargon) | kluge up
vt.
To lash together a quick hack to perform a task; this is milder than {cruft
together} and has some of the connotations of hack up (note, however,
that the construction kluge on corresponding to hack on is never used). “
I've kluged up this routine to dump the buffer contents to a safe place.”
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