Talk:Kludge

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

Contents 1 On Spelling 2 On pronunciation 3 Hacks, kludges & irony 4 reversion of 'opinion' about English

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)