[from the German `klug', clever; poss.
related to Polish `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.
