Meaning – The term kludge, refers to a solution to a problem, the performance of a task, or a system fix that is inefficient, inelegant (“hacky”), or even incomprehensible, but which somehow works. It is similar to a workaround, but quick and ugly. To “kludge around something” is to avoid a bug or difficulty by building a kludge, perhaps exploiting the properties of the bug itself. A kludge is often used to modify a working system while avoiding fundamental changes or to ensure backward compatibility.
Another type of kludge is the evasion of an unknown problem or bug in a computer program. Rather than continue to struggle to diagnose and fix the bug, the programmer may write additional code to compensate.
Example of usage – “In computer networking, use of NAT (Network Address Translation) or PAT (Port Address Translation) to cope with the shortage of IPv4 addresses is an example of a kludge.”
