That's wonderful!
And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#22My favorite is "log", named after logbooks. Logbooks have maritime origins, where the ships speed is recorded. Even today, speedometer on ships are in many languages called "a log" since the original method consists of throwing an actual log overboard with a string attached to it. The string would have knots with regular intervals. To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a certain t…
And I suppose that's also the origin of measuring speed in "knots" (?)
Yes
Update: my original answer was short because, well, I'm a sailor. But for more, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_(unit)
Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#23This is why the DEL key is all ones. It was used to overpunch the wrong letter on a paper tape and replace it with a character that meant ignore (delete) it. As done on an ASR-33 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33
I'm sorry, "all ones"?
Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#24That's amusing, but the linguistics sounds wrong to me. The "patch" tool was written by Larry Wall (of Perl fame) in the early 80's based on the preexisting diff format. Neither had much ancestry in common with paper tape storage, which was never really a Unix thing.
Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#25This is why the DEL key is all ones. It was used to overpunch the wrong letter on a paper tape and replace it with a character that meant ignore (delete) it. As done on an ASR-33 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33
I'm sorry, "all ones"?
The ASCII code for DEL is 127, which is 1111111 in binary.
Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#26Here's a photo of the first computer "bug" from 1947: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13404211
Incorrect. It was the first case of a software bug being an actual bug. In other words - a true pun. The first computer bug was found in 1843 by Ada Lovelace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug#History Thomas Edison used the term bug to indicate a flaw in 1873 http://theinstitute.ieee.org/tech-history/technology-history...
Punch card's date back to 1725 so the term may relate to literal bugs. Though, not in what we think of as computers.
Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#27Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#28My favorite is "log", named after logbooks. Logbooks have maritime origins, where the ships speed is recorded. Even today, speedometer on ships are in many languages called "a log" since the original method consists of throwing an actual log overboard with a string attached to it. The string would have knots with regular intervals. To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a certain t…
> To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a certain time. But how did they count "a certain time"? (Before stopwatches).
Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#29That's amusing, but the linguistics sounds wrong to me. The "patch" tool was written by Larry Wall (of Perl fame) in the early 80's based on the preexisting diff format. Neither had much ancestry in common with paper tape storage, which was never really a Unix thing.
You think Larry Wall chose the name with no reference to existing terminology?
Re: And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”
#30My favorite is "monkey-patch," which came from engineers incorrectly reproducing an earlier term, "guerilla patch", as "gorilla patch": https://web.archive.org/web/20120730014107/http://wiki.zope.....