[very common; origin unknown; poss. from `crusty' or `cruddy']
1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The {canonical} example is
"This is standard old crufty {DEC} software". In fact, one fanciful
theory of the origin of crufty holds that was originally a mutation
of `crusty' applied to DEC software so old that the `s' characters
were tall and skinny, looking more like `f' characters.
2. Unpleasant, especially to the touch, often with encrusted junk.
Like spilled coffee smeared with peanut butter and catsup.
3. Generally unpleasant.
4. (sometimes spelled cruftie) n. A small crufty object (see {frob});
often one that doesn't fit well into the scheme of things. "A LISP
property list is a good place to store crufties (or, collectively,
{random} cruft)."
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's
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.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {BrokenWindows}{buried treasure}{clean}{cruft}{cruft together}{IBM}{monkey up}]