quick-and-dirty

Quick-and-dirty is a term used in reference to anything that is an easy way to implement a workaround or "kludge." Its usage is popular among programmers, who use it to describe a crude solution or programming implementation that is imperfect, inelegant, or otherwise inadequate, but which solves or masks the problem at hand, and is generally faster and easier to put in place than a proper solution. It is also used in cognitive science to describe first-pass cognitive processes that might attempt to quickly process information in a simple way before resorting to more heavy resource-consuming processes.^{[citation needed]}

Recognising the attractiveness of implementing changes speedily, there was a general move to formalise this as rapid application development.

Quick-and-dirty solutions often attend to a specific instance of a problem rather than fixing the cause of the more general problem. As such, they are sometimes used to keep an item of software or hardware working temporarily until a proper fix can be made.

The phrase is also frequently used in describing any document or tutorial that gives a brief overview about how to do something, without going into too much detail about why or how it works.

Microsoft's first operating system, MS-DOS, was originally called Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS)^[1], prior to its purchase from Seattle Computer Products.

See also

• Hack
• Hacker culture
• Hack value
• List of software development philosophies
• Rapid application development
• Worse is better

References

1. ^ DOS history by its original creator