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 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.
Recognizing the attractiveness of implementing changes speedily, there was a general move to formalize 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), prior to its purchase from Seattle Computer Products.