Mark over at Full Stack Theology wrote a great response to my previous post. It’s a solid piece, but I want to hone in more on this idea of a Kludge because I hastily threw it out there without much thought.
Thinking it through more, I might have to retract my initial comment altogether.
My tweet-response would have been "isn't an old European city simply a set of kludges built on top of each other?"3 If a kludge is truly without any harmony in form, aesthetics, construction, or theory, then yes, kludges are to be avoided - but to meet all those criteria, you have a very small category.
There's a kind of beauty to that would commonly be described as a kludge. If beauty is about proportion and relation, then an important question in judging the beauty in any work is asking what should be in proportion to what. A beautiful kludge, an 'elegant hack', is where the fix is in proper relation to its rather-constraining circumstances. Isn't that the awe of MacGyver - to take unassuming materials in an unassuming circumstance and create something new?4
This is a rather unimpressive example of MacGyvering, but this is the example of a kludge I had ready at hand. My cheap, disposable transparent tape dispenser broke. I could toss it and buy a higher-quality one (maybe worth doing in the future), stop using this kind of tape (good long term goal), or continue to use the dispenser with its sharp edges (unwise). Or, I could… simply tape the dispenser back together. This taped dispenser is ugly when considered by itself - or rather, considered as an object simply to be seen. But it is fitting - beautiful, even - when considered within the greater order of my desk and my life. It is a small thing, so fixing it with more visual appeal would take work and focus that would not be properly proportioned to the problem of its simple visual ugliness. And so the tape[d] dispenser, as kludgy as it looks, has a fitting relationship with the ecosystem it is part of.
I love the tape dispenser example. I have a slightly higher-tech example from this past week that I will add later, but the tape first.
Kludges, like most material things, have a place. That place is as a stopgap. When all you have on hand is tape, well, I guess you’re fixing the problem with tape. Given the particular circumstances, the best thing genuinely might be to construct a kludge.
BUT.
The possibility of creating a kludge is a temptation to lethargy: “Oh, it’s good enough. It will work for now. We can go home now and forget about it.” Yes, but only for a while. This is not the way things should be in the long-term. Kludges are a testimony to brilliance and ingenuity. Kludges being left in place until they need to be replaced again are a testimony to laziness.
We have to contrast a Kludge to Wrath of Gnon’s 25 year well.
Imagine that you need to build a well in the courtyard of your new village farmstead home. Which well is more likely to be still around in 1,000 years time: a factory made cement ring well with a lifespan of 100 years, or a wooden board well with a lifespan of 25 years?
The answer, paradoxically, is the far shorter lived wooden well. The reason being is that when your great-great grandfather built the cement ring well he relied on a technological ecosystem for materials, confidence and skills that might not exist in your day. The likelihood that he taught your great-grandfather who taught your grandfather, who taught your father, who taught you, is relatively slim, especially since there was no pressing need to pass down or learn these skills. The well was there, let the people in the future worry about rebuilding it.
I agree with this logic. But a Kludge isn’t a 25 year well. A kludge is more like a 5 year well made of paper and cardboard and random stuff that was strewn about. A kludge represents a break from tradition, from the way things were. It is a temporary pause to get back to where we are supposed to be. To have it in place indefinitely is a sort of telling the next generation that we do not care. Now, circumstances change. Perhaps even the “kludge” produced ends up holding better over time and has beneficial side-effects: I will grant that possibility! But what happens at that point is the kludge is “canonized” into tradition; a new way of building is found and carried on. In this way the kludge ceases to be a one-time anomaly, and rather a part of the biological process.
How do we tell whether the kludge will hold up over time or not? Evaluation, of course. The biggest tell is what we do the next time around.
If a kludge is made and it is found to be suitable, when it is reproduced, it will be done with higher craftsmanship. Rather than a rough-hewn block, a nicely shaped one will be employed. It will also be done proactively: if the tape dispenser keeps breaking, add tape before the break. In this way it is recognized that the kludge was a component of perfection.
As it is canonized, it becomes a proper component of the technological ecosystem. Mark’s taped tape dispenser uses materials that are on hand. He has made the tape dispenser more native to its place. We would think it strange if he went to a machinist with a 5-axis CNC mill and asked for a whole new body be milled. This is not traditional.
Kludges can just as easily be made with high-tech or “proper” means.
This week, I wanted to improve my laser cutter. I had a 2.5” focal length lens on it, and in my spare parts, had a 4” focal lens. Now, to take full advantage of this increased focal length (better cutting angles), I needed a different nozzle for the airblast (the idea is to use the laser to melt/burn material and then blow the material away).
All well and good. I figured that I would just make a new nozzle. But as I started to take things apart, this would not be so easy. The nozzle attaches with a M19x1 thread. Now, I do have a lathe. But it’s an old one, and it doesn’t have metric change gears, and this is America, darnit - we measure using the length of three grains of barley (inches). And M19x1? I could understand M20x1; that’s a common diameter but extra fine pitch… this is a very particular thread. The thread is not native to its place in my shop (it isn’t native to many people’s shops).
So, I instead drilled out the nozzle and tapped it to 1/8” NPT, and threaded a piece of tubing into the end of the nozzle.
I have to admit, it looks a little stupid. But, if I change focal length, I can just put a different piece of commonly-available tubing in the nozzle.
I have decreased the harmony of the machine to itself (now it has english and metric threads) but I have increased the harmony of the machine to its environment (it has more english threads).
At the same time, I think at some point, I might machine a totally new lens tube - so that it isn’t a mess of metric parts and is instead a good assortment of english parts. In this way it will possess consistency-harmony both in itself and with the outside world.
So, we strive towards a world of consistency and harmony; a world without kludges. But, the way to get there, is oftentimes, with a kludge.