Literary notes about kludge (AI summary)
The term "kludge" is deployed to capture the ironic valuation of technological solutions that are both inventive and imperfect. In one usage, it conveys the idea that what one person might see as dream software is another’s barely functional, makeshift creation [1]. It is often evoked in a dismissive tone that underscores its haphazard yet sometimes endearing nature, even extending to references of outdated media like plastic-disked relics [2]. Accentuating its flexible identity, the word is sometimes intentionally misspelled or variably pronounced to reflect its mutability in technical discourse [3][4]. Moreover, its very essence is distilled in reference works, which succinctly define it as "a crock that works" [5].
- One person’s dream software may be another’s kludge.
— from The Silicon Jungle by David H. Rothman - Certainly it was true: one man’s joy, another man’s plastic-disked 69 kludge—that was software for you.
— from The Silicon Jungle by David H. Rothman - but spell it incorrectly as `kludge' (compare the pronunciation drift of {mung}).
— from The Jargon File, Version 2.9.10, 01 Jul 1992 - Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling `kludge'.
— from The Jargon File, Version 2.9.10, 01 Jul 1992 - In fact, the TMRC Dictionary defined `kludge' as "a crock that works".
— from The Jargon File, Version 2.9.10, 01 Jul 1992
