crufty

crufty
 /kruhf'tee/, adj.

   [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.