crawling horror

crawling horror
 n.

   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}.
    

crawling horror

   <jargon> 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}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1994-12-01)