cruft

Something that is "crufty" may be dirty, unpleasant, extra, sloppily implemented, duplicated elsewhere or simply useless. Cruft, for instance, could refer to a URL where internal organizational details or directories that matter to no one but the webmasters "clutter" up the address. A mobile operating system that requires a user to navigate six submenus to complete a frequently-used function is another example of cruft.

While cruft is usually used in computer programming, many coders or lovers of hacker jargon also apply it to any situation or device that may merit it. For instance, the piles of obsolete monitors, old connection cables and CRT monitors that lie in the spare supply rooms and closets of office complexes everywhere are a classic example of physical cruft.

Cruft may also be used as a verb, describing the process of putting together a program, network or physical system in a poorly designed or implemented way. Crufting together a solution to a client's specifications or organization's needs may be necessary due to time, budget or staffing constraints. It is, however, rarely a well-respected practice in consulting, though more commonly encountered than many system administrators, VARs or information architects would prefer.

Urban legend in Cambridge, Massachusetts holds that the term "cruft" was coined by MIT students as a derisive comment on the electronics-filled windows of Cruft Hall at Harvard University. Cruft was part of the old physics building at Harvard, where it served as the department's radar laboratory during WWII, which led to the existence of many kinds of wonderful but quite obsolete technological gadgets remaining on display.

Read more about cruft: - Sean McGrath wrote about the inevitability of cruft at ITWorld.com. - Hacker 'Verity Stob' has developed a helpful cruft index to help gauge the decrepitude of a PC. - Michael August Pusateri, a technology guru at Disney, maintains a blog at CruftBox.com. - Robert Spahr uses an algorithm to constantly create artistic cruft from online source images.

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