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cruft |
2 definitions found From Jargon File (4.2.3, 23 NOV 2000) [jargon]: cruft /kruhft/ [very common; back-formation from {crufty}] 1. n. An unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a broom only produces more 2. n. The results of shoddy construction. 3. vt [from `hand cruft', pun on `hand craft'] To write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by a compiler (see {hand-hacking}). 4. n. Excess; superfluous junk; used esp. of redundant or superseded code. 5. [University of Wisconsin] n. Cruft is to hackers as gaggle is to geese; that is at UW one properly says "a cruft of hackers". From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) [foldoc]: cruft /kruhft/ [back-formation from {crufty}] 1. An unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a broom only produces more 2. The results of shoddy construction. 3. ["hand cruft", pun on "hand craft"] To write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by a compiler (see {hand-hacking}). 4. Excess; superfluous junk; used especially of redundant or superseded code. This term is one of the oldest in the jargon and no one is sure of its etymology, but it is suggestive that there is a Cruft Hall at Harvard University which is part of the old physics building. It is said to have been the physics department's radar lab during WWII To this day (early 1993) the windows appear to be full of random techno-junk. {MIT} or Lincoln Labs people may well have coined the term as a knock on the competition.
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