Talk:Kludge

Was someone going to merge the kludge and kluge entries? -- Devotchka

Phineas Burling

Quote: "Dutch kloog, Swedish Klag, Danish Klog, Gothic Klaugen, Lettish Kladnis and Sanskrit Veklaunn"

I think Phineas Burling was misquoated or he probably doesn't know what he is talking about. "Klag" in Swedish doesn't mean anything, in 1685 it was used as a strange bending of the verb "klaga" which means 'complain'. It sure doesnt mean 'smart' or 'witty'. I suspect the same with the -alleged- danish "Klog"...

But it sure sounds convincing? I think someone made this up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.71.219.253 (talk) 09:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a joke. That's why it's referred to as "ironic". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.45.4 (talk) 20:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the Swedish word they were going for in this instance is "klok" which does mean smart or wise. 67.128.198.190 (talk) 21:03, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

On Spelling

Both spellings (kludge and kluge) are common. The google test in English gives 165,000 pages with "kluge" and 121,000 pages with "kludge".

However, if you do a google groups search, the results are the opposite: 151,000 for "kludge" and only 73,000 for "kluge"

After looking at many of the web search results, I saw that many of the pages for "kluge" are not uses of the word as described here, but are uses of the word as a name. It is therefore difficult to definitively state that "kluge" outnumbers "kludge" in usage on the web.

This is confirmed by searching for "a kluge" (68,000) vs. "a kludge" (363,000) Rp 19:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

In an analysis of how many of the top 30 results were relevant, this was only case for 9 for kluge, giving an approximate hit rate of 0.3 and a "true" result count of 49,500. For kludge, 24 of the top 30 results were relevant, giving an approximate hit rate of 0.8 and a "true" result count of 96,500.

I would guess based on these facts that in actual usage "kludge" outnumbers "kluge", and I think frequency of usage makes a good argument for which page should be the actual article and which should be the redirect. However, I don't have any definitive evidence, so I'll leave them as is.

Nohat 00:29, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC)

The Datamation article cited appears to have used the spelling kludge, but I recall an article in the same magazine in the same year, I believe the October issue, that used it as kluge. I'm not sure it was the same article. IIRC it was 1973 when I saw the article, still a long time ago. I have the impression that the spelling with the d is a recent aberration, and I don't think that dictionaries are the kind of authority they used to be. Their philosophies have become quite muddled of late. I vote for kluge as the primary spelling; why add to the mess that English is in by advocating a nonsensical variant? ;Bear 18:07, 2004 Apr 7 (UTC)

There are lots of words whose spellings have changed over time. The evidence points to "kludge" being at least as common as or more common that "kluge", at least on the internet. In English, the only true arbiter of usage is usage itself, so to exclude "kludge" on the grounds that it's "nonsensical" or a "recent aberration" would be a violation of NPOV policy.

As for your opinion of dictionaries' philosophies, I assume you are referring to the fact that most modern English dictionaries are descriptive in that they describe how language actually works rather than prescriptive, prescribing how language should work. Most modern linguists and lexicographers don't really consider linguistic prescription to be a valid method of describing language, not only because it's inherently biased and based on outdated methods of language study, but because it is impolitic—prescriptive methods invariably condemn usages of poor, uneducated or otherwise marginalized minorities. Nohat 00:20, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC)

The only clinker in all of that is that dictionaries were prescriptive for a long time, like centuries, and many people expect them to be. So when they find things that are in there for the other reason, or worst case, things that even the dictionary writers consider erroneous but won't say so because -- another whole discussion -- well, suddenly the degradation of the language is accellerated -- LOTS of people think "if it's in the dictionary it must be right". ;Bear 05:16, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC)

The problem is that very concepts of "erroneous language" and "degradation of the language" are rejected by most scholars of language as being specious. In the view of modern linguists, there simply is no such thing as "incorrect" or "wrong" language—that is just what the language élite call the speech patterns of marginalized minorities. The idea that language used to be perfect and changes in the language constitute "degradation of the language" is as backward an idea to modern linguists as the concept of balacing the four humours is to modern doctors or luminiferous aether is to modern physicists. Nohat 16:24, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC)

Okey, than i dont spose we nead to be sow cairfull abot speling and punkshoewayshun cuz itstill langwidge. Huh. <LilyTomlinSnort>fnrk fnrk</LilyTomlinSnort> and I'll take it with a grain of salt. There is, in spite of all the erudition, such a thing as adult english, and there's kids' english, and it's all understandable (even when it's hilarious), but what are we doing wasting our time fixing typos? ;Bear 05:57, 2004 Apr 10 (UTC)

The Jargon File has a compelling argument (to me at least) in its entry on Kluge that the original spelling was Kluge, and is more correct. However, whichever spelling is chosen for the actual article's page name, I think the article should use that same spelling as its main spelling. So, the current page should reverse its usage of kluge and kludge OR the page should be swapped with the Kludge redirect page. Wayned 22:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I would argue against using frequency of usage as a determinant of what is "correct". Consider these Google search results:

"contact john or me" -- 139 hits

"contact john or myself" -- 370 hits

Whoever the writer is, I cannot contact himself or herself. Only he or she can contact himself or herself.

A better determinant of correctness, at least in this case, is whether the spelling conforms to the pronunciation (inasmuch as such conformity exists in English). Does the word rhyme with "huge" or with "fudge"? Are there any words ending in "udge" that rhyme with "kluge"? I side with the Jargon File. Rsmoore 16:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

On pronunciation

Regarding pronounciation... Merriam-Webster is the first I've seen acknowledge the 'fudge'-style pronounciation, so that's good to have in there. But listing 'rouge' along with 'huge' could be misleading since they end in different sounds. Rouge is almostly always pronounced 'rüzh', not 'rüj', and no dictionary that I've seen acknowledges kludge (or kluge) as 'klüzh'. Thus, I 'huge' and 'fudge' are probably sufficient to cover the two ways to say the word.

Ds13 21:30, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)

One more thing I forgot to include. A few years ago I knew a guy who had a huge die-cutting press, quite a behemoth, and some decades old. The brand name on it was Kluge. ;Bear 21:11, 2004 Apr 8 (UTC)

Interesting. Here in the UK, I have never ever heard anyone pronounce 'kludge' like 'huge'. Only like 'fudge'. Maybe this is a US/UK difference. (Or maybe I have been hearing the 'huge' pronunciation, but just didn't realize what they were saying. :-) ) --DudeGalea 06:36, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty to edit the remarks on pronunciation. It was remarked that the pronunciation "kluge" seems odd given the spelling "kludge", but if the rest of the article is correct in stating that the "kluge" pronunciation is original, it is in fact the spelling "kludge" that is odd. However, the sound of a large body hitting the water would more closely approximate "kludge" than "kluge", so this change is debatable. Another (and safe) change I made is to provide a better approximation of the German pronunciation - clook wasn't very accurate. Rp 13:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Australian here, and I've always pronounced it "klooj" and spelled it "kludge". The "kluge" spelling reads to me as "kloog" like the lights. -- Resuna (talk) 14:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

2¢ from an information consumer: Reading this article, I found the use of 'huge' misleading as a point of comparison for pronunciation. I'm not an expert on this subject, but it seems to me like 'stooge' is a better fit. Lex (talk) 14:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Hacks, kludges & irony

Kludges are expected to work and are generally relied upon, whereas hacks either "mostly work", in the case of a bad hack or "work elegently" in the case of a good hack. What makes a kludge a hack is when it's elegent in a perverse way. Perhaps the defining characteristic of a kludge is that it both "mostly works" _and_ "works elegently". The elegent perversity is what makes kludges ironic, a bad fix done skillfully. I'm unhappy with verbage that implies kludges don't work. The main problem with a kludge, in my experience, is it's lack of generality. Hence the discussion of corner cases (which now seems too long and still doesn't talk about generality much.) Kludges do work, but break unexpectly when some 'large enough' change is made to their environment. At that point their unfathomabiltiy, due in some way or another to the skill used in their constrution, makes them difficult to fix. In some sense, kludges are hueristics, but when a hueristic is used it's failuers are explicitly accounted for in the overall design. Kludges are hueristic in the sense that they both share a lack of generality. Huerestics lack of generality is algurethmic, well defined and described in terms of inputs and outputs. Kludge's lack of generality is sometimes related to input and output values, but more often related to the overall environment in which the kludge operates. (i.e. works on land but not at sea.) To recognise a kludge is to recognize how it relies on it's operating environment to keep working, and to call something a good kludge is, among other things, to claim that the operating environment won't change enough during the expected lifetime of the system to break the kludge.

Also, kludges are not always workarounds as impiled in the first paragraph. They can be "direct" attempts at solving some problem.

So, needs more work. Kop 01:53, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Kop, I think I would disagree with some of your comments above. I cannot think of a case in which a thing labeled a kludge is elegant or admirable. Insultingly ironically admirable, perhaps. The idea in all uses I've encountered is that a kludge is ugly, a jury rig, a "camel by committee" design for a horse, and so on. That a kludge must work (else it's probably a crock) is no saving grace as grace and elegance is a hallmark of good design, not of kludges which are just as the name sounds awkward and clumsy and inelegant.

A hack -- meaning something just hacked together without much time or effort put in -- is likely to be a kludge since minimal design thought rarely produces good design, and so if it works is likely to be a kludge. But the odd hack turns out very well, is very elegant, is actually admirable, and so can't be a kludge. Except ironically. The layers of irony in this connection quickly become quite tangled and so this discussion has become a kludge of sorts.

And then there's English spelling, so much a kludge as to be a crock even if it works, which it just about doesn't. Enough, however. ww 13:41, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What's elegant and admirable about a kludge is the understanding and skill required by the creator. Jury rig, yes, but whoever jury-rigged it understood what needed to be done to make it mostly work, which means understanding _when_ it needed to work and under what conditions it is likely not to be called upon to work, an so under what conditions it can fail without impacting the user. The creator of a kludge _may_ also have called upon a deep understanding of some internal workings to make a simple change which solves the problem _at_hand_. In this sense it's similar to a hack, execpt a good hack in this sense will always work whereas a kludge only works for the moment. Not every kludge is admirable in the sense I'm speaking of here. The other sort of kludge is admirable in that it's so screwy that it's amazing it works at all, and you've got to somehow admire the the fellow who got it to work anyway.

So, there's always something to admire in the vicinity of a kludge. That's what distingushes kludges from bad hacks, workarounds, crocks, and shoddy workmanship. It's an essential trait, one intimately related to the fact that kludges _work_. (Until something changes.) The irony is that something with such a large flaw as a kludge is associated with something admirable.

Here's a canonical sort of kludge: Buying new underwear upon running out of clean underwear. It works around the problem in an elegant way that exhibits understanding of the difficulty while at the same time failing to solve the problem in a general sense.

--kop 18:27, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Michael Layton: My usage of kludge (and hack) is roughly the opposite of the above. A hack is generally positive particularly because it is correct by design. Common problems with a hack may be that it is poorly documented and that most people don't understand it because they aren't aren't as skilled as the author (the hacker). It may also be a quick fix to the operation without cleanup of the design itself. By contrast, the ONLY good thing about a kludge is that it produces correct results in a case otherwise wrong or incomplete. A kludge typically exhibits lack of understanding of the problem by the author and is not correct by design. It typically relies on incomplete testing or limited use cases to maintain satisfactory results. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.237.195.226 (talk) 03:50, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I would not describe a kludge as "elegant". It's more "inelegant, but we have to do it that way because...". -- Resuna (talk) 14:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

reversion of 'opinion' about English

English spelling is indeed chaotic, irregular, and irrational. Fair enought to mote in WP as is done here in passing. The more important issue is that this sentence is a self-referential illustration of kludge, and so appropriate to the this article. ww 06:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I previously removed the sentence about "kludge" being a kludge in itself (sorry I didn't notice your talk page entry). I disagree—something that's irregular, like the pronunciation of "kludge", isn't necessarily a kludge—, but more importantly, it's not verifyable or cited. Therefore I think this doesn't belong into Wikipedia. -- Felix Wiemann

English spelling is widely reviled as chaotic and thus in some sense a kludge. GBS' leaving money in his will to reform it is only one instance, though spectacular. There are several organizations devoted to its reform today, and many have Web sites with forums and reader comment and all that. There is a considerable amount of academic work explaining how the spelling got this way, and of commercial work documenting it (eg, in dictonaries). WP is not forbidden from taking note of the commonplace. Not every statement on WP requires a source citation. For instance, to observe that many roof shingles in the US are made from asphalt, or that pi has the value 3.1415..., or that many Presidents o fht eUS have ridden horses, ... do not require citation.

In addition, the comment is amusing (not forbidden on WP) and self-illustrative of the subject of the article. Both points which assist the Average Reader. The Mary Poppins maxim that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down is actually relevant in non-fiction, even encyclopedic, writing. This is hardly a spoonful, but a smile still helps. Clarity and high quality prose are specifically enjoined for WP editors under the rubric of great writing for WP articles. In this instance the phrase contributes, though perhaps not to the heights of greatness.

And so, I disagree with your removal. Comment? ww 20:37, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I just don't agree with the usage of the word "kludge" in this case. I don't regard irregular spelling as a "kludge". However, since I'm not a native English speaker, feel free to re-insert the remark into the article. -- Felix Wiemann 05:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This is too much trying to be "clever". Kludges solve a problem in a clumsy way. Irregular spelling is not a solution to a problem--it's an idiosyncrasy of a language. The concept of kludges and irregular spellings are in completely orthogonal worldviews, and do not apply to each other in any sensible way. Nohat 23:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Link to clunky is unsatisfactory

In the revision as of 2005-12-10T04:04:37, User:Perfecto linked this to the (currently) entirely unhelpful article "clunky". Something needs doing about it! PJTraill 14:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal of Bodge/Botch into Kuldge

As a Brit, the merger proposal is a nonsensical non-starter. I'd only ever once heard the term "kludge" once when I was in MI, but botch or bodge are used in everyday British language. The reason is that the engineer Sir Thomas Bouch is the originator of the word, from the 1871 Tay Rail Bridge disaster. Hence I say a definative NO to a merger proposal. Rgds, - Trident13 18:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree. ww 09:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Aerospace engineering use section

AFAIK, across many disciplines, it widely considered good practice to reuse existing designs that are know to be satisfactory rather than reinvent everything from scratch for every new project. Such a methodology saves time and money and reduces opportunity for mistakes. I am no expert on the usage of the word "kludge" but this section strikes me as rather odd because it cites repeated criticism of the methodology of design reuse. What is the point of this section? 41.241.90.60 (talk) 12:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You have, I think, mistaken the point. A kludge is awkward, clumsy, etc and by that test the Skylab qualifies. That it is also brilliant cost-effective and functional is irrelevant from the perspective of the word. Kludge concentrates on the awkwardness, but also denotes that despite the awkwardness it works. ww (talk) 02:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

"In aerospace design a kluge was a temporary design using separate commonly available components that were not flight worthy to proof the design and enable concurrent software development while the integrated components were developed and manufactured" -- shouldn't it read: "... components that WAS (ie. design) not flight worthy to be proofed..."? I can't quite make sense of the sentence as it stands 89.231.100.9 (talk) 20:42, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ww's post about kludginess and cost-effectiveness. Oftentimes engineers reuse a design not only because they already have it, but because they have already proven it to be near optimal in previous design and testing. That's hardly a kludge.

In addition, I would recommend against limiting this to Aerospace engineering. Kludges are common to all engineering disciplines; Aerospace engineers brought the practice from elsewhere. 129.123.85.19 (talk) 05:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

"clewage" and pronunciation generally

I've removed the recent of addition on "clewage"; aside from the formatting issues, that it was added under a signature, completely unsourced, and has a distinctly ORish ring to it, that spelling gets suspiciously few ghits.

On the spelling and pronunciation issues: I suspect that we indeed have assimiliation of two originally separate derivations. I'd only ever heard the "kludge" pronuniciation, until I was "corrected" by a (British-resident) speaker of U.S. English. The jargon file currently separates the two, with elaborately fine-grained claims of distinctions in meaning, but it would at least be consistent with the variation in spelling, and in prevalence either side of the Atlantic. Alai (talk) 00:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

There's a mildly important point here. The word is spelled "kludge" and rhymes with "stoodge". Although the "kluge" spelling with the same pronunciation is acceptable. In any event, a "kludge" spelling should not be assumed to rhyme with "fudge". The point, to an American at least, is that "kludge" clearly derives from German somehow (it starts with "kl" as in "Klaus"), and German has all sorts of wierd (to an American) accent marks and pronunciations, hence there is nothing contradictory about a word spelled "kludge" rhyming with "stoodge". Also, rhymes with "rouge" would be treated as the French pronunciation, and possibly ironic, depending on context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.45.4 (talk) 21:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

section merge with quick and dirty?

Disagree: I can imagine a quick and dirty jerry rigged thing which doesn't work well enough to be an actual kludge, so I think the merge is of two disparate topics. The similarity between them, nonetheless, probably justifies a comment or two. Reactions or comments? ww (talk) 15:56, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Disagree as well. ++Lar: t/c 02:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Disagree as well. It's worth keeping QAD with the lexicon of RAD, JAD, etc. Greyskinnedboy (talk) 10:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Disagree also. Quick and Dirty doesn't express elegance that sometimes comes with a Kluge. A kluge often works because you do something unexpected, and can involve clever or unexpected thinking. Quick and Dirty is just a simple, often embarrassing way to get something to work without much work. Stevemidgley (talk) 18:21, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

section merge with workaround?

Disagree: I have essentially the same reaction to this proposal as to the one just above. Again, reactions or comments? ww (talk) 15:56, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Disagree:Keep split. Workaround is a much more established and well used word with many uses that each need explaining. Kludge is more specific and less frequently used than workaround. - Shiftchange (talk) 02:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Disagree: Workaround is not the same as a kluge. A kluge is sometimes a solution, whereas a workaround is often done when a solution cannot be found. Stevemidgley (talk) 18:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

zonk! ZONK! ZZZOOONNNKKK!!!!

please visit Reliable Software`s site (http://www.relisoft.com/science/ui/index.htm)!! it contains an obscure text about "kludge" 'n programming. excerpt from it:

" Here is the solution.

It's a simple device that can be attached to the faucets, mix the two streams, and output one stream of water whose temperature is the weighted average of the unpleasant extremes. It's not perfect, the rubber sleeves have a tendency of slipping, but it'll do in a pinch.

Where have we seen this types of solutions in software? All over the place. In programming, this design device is called a kludge. You start with a badly designed UI and after numerous complaints from the mutant users, you add a kludge on top of it. A.K.A a "quick and dirty" solution. "

88.209.237.147 (talk) 20:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Section title

I changed "Etymology" back to "Linguistics" because this revised section discusses not only etymology but also spelling, pronunciation, and semantics. Would it be better to use something like "The word"? Another idea would be "Lexicography" with subsections for OED and Jargon File. What do you think? Keahapana (talk) 21:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Family Verification

Yes indeed my father created the word "kludge" and used it throughout my childhood (Early 60's).

Most often he used it as a synonym for "jerry-rig"--or the process of creating a custom-fix for a problem. It is similar to todays "Macgyver It", though this modern example implies some sort of ingenuity. Kludging something, based on the context of dad's usage, hints at assembling things with more than a small sense of desparation and frustration. The word "just" was used often with the word "kludge", and though the word was coined during dad's work on early computers at Boeing in the 1950's, I first heard it when he and my older brothers were busy restoring Hudson Hornet automobiles in the family garage. When a fix couldn't be found, dad would say "Well lets just kludge it".

My father also coined two other words that are gaining in popular usage.

The word "slowe" (Pronounced sl--ou 'as in ouch'). A verb meaning to beat severely, as is "If you kids don't setle down I'm going to slowe you one."

and

"Flubdubbity" meaning a state of extreme confusion.

Submitted by Glen W. Granholm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.233.96 (talk) 17:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)