Ancient crufty hardware or software that is kept obstinately alive by
forces beyond the control of the hackers at a site. Like {dusty deck}
or {gonkulator}, but connotes that the thing described is not just an
irritation but an active menace to health and sanity. "Mostly we code
new stuff in C, but they pay us to maintain one big FORTRAN II
application from nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror...."
Compare {WOMBAT}.
This usage is almost certainly derived from the fiction of H.P.
Lovecraft. Lovecraft may never have used the exact phrase "crawling
horror" in his writings, but one of the fearsome Elder Gods that he
wrote extensively about was Nyarlethotep, who had as an epithet "The
Crawling Chaos". Certainly the extreme, even melodramatic horror of
his characters at the weird monsters they encounter, even to the
point of going insane with fear, is what hackers are referring to
with this phrase when they use it for horribly bad code. Compare
{cthulhic}.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {cthulhic}{dusty deck}{WOMBAT}]