Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be odd, given that it was developed in France.
Yeah that would be pretty odd, I suppose I was mistaken then.
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How Programming Languages Got Their Names
91–100 of 121 posts
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#92Zig apparently got its name from this: https://gist.github.com/andrewrk/73742bf4b8ed795c85ce
Just rolled the dice on 'z' + vowel + consonant + consonant until something good came up.
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#93This list is disappointingly short. Here's a few more of the top of my head, feel free to expand the list! : C: a successor to B, itself derived from BCPL. C++: increments over C. D: a successor to C. LISP: LISt Processor. FORTRAN: FORmula TRANslator. ALGOL: ALGorithmic Language. Prolog: PROgrammation LOGique (logic programming in French). PHP: initially PHP/FI for "Personal Home Page Form Interpreter", later rebrand…
D was originally the 'Digital Mars Compiler'.
Everyone around Walter Bright kept calling it D because it was a modern language with C-like syntax. Thus, D the next letter in the alphabet and eventually Walter gave in. :)
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#94FORTH = because the machine Chuck Moore was using wouldn't accept a longer name; he wanted to call it "Fourth" SNOBOL = (from Wikipedia) "According to Dave Farber, he, Griswold and Polonsky "finally arrived at the name Symbolic EXpression Interpreter SEXI." All went well until one day I was submitting a batch job to assemble the system and as normal on my JOB card — the first card in the deck, I, in BTL standards, pu…
> FORTH = because the machine Chuck Moore was using wouldn't accept a longer name; he wanted to call it "Fourth"
Additionally, he wanted to name it "Fourth" because it was targeting the fourth generation of computers [1] that featured the first hard disks (IIRC) - not because he thought of it as a fourth generation language.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware_...
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#95Python, Delphi and Oracle all relate to the same Greek legend.
Rumors say that the priestess in this temple was having visions because of natural local fumes [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythia#Scientific_explanations
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#96Haskell Curry has the honor of having two programming languages named after him: Haskell and Curry [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry_(programming_language)
I guess "currying" is also named after him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currying#History
I learned of Haskell (the language) and currying (the technique) before learning of Haskell Curry (the person). So whenever I see the name "Haskell Curry", it looks like a joke name at first glance. Like "wow, someone's parents were _really into_ functional programming", or maybe, he's the counterpart to Janet Javascript and Python Pete?
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#97Pascal: named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal Oberon: named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(moon) Ada: named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace Eiffel: named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Eiffel Sather: named afer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sather_Tower Nim: named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod Erlang (Ericsson language): named after https://en.…
To my knowledge, Oberon was named after Oberon, the king of elfs.
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#98Awk: Aho, Weinberger & Kernighan [0]
Tcl: (an embeddable) Tool Command Language [1]
Forth: FOURTH as in "4th generation software", "successor to 3rd generation compile-link-go languages", or "software for 4rd generation hardware", but IBM 1130 naming cut it short one char [2]
PostScript: after the postfix notation it uses and because it was to be the last thing that happened to an image before it was printed [3]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWK
[1] https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Tcl+vs%2E+TCL
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_(programming_language)
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linda has a particularly unsavory origin story (hint: It has a connection to Ada): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_(coordination_language) That probably wouldn't fly anymore in today's CS research. As for Oberon, the moon may have played a role, but according to stories recently told at Niklaus Wirth's memorial service, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and the mythological character in general https://en.wikipedia.org…
It wouldn't fly, but I bet people would just obscure their true intent with a plausible story - "I wanted to make a language more beautiful than Ada, so I called it 'Linda', which means beautiful in Spanish"
Your made-up story even wouldn't fly either nowadays.
Re: How Programming Languages Got Their Names
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linda has a particularly unsavory origin story (hint: It has a connection to Ada): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_(coordination_language) That probably wouldn't fly anymore in today's CS research. As for Oberon, the moon may have played a role, but according to stories recently told at Niklaus Wirth's memorial service, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and the mythological character in general https://en.wikipedia.org…
It wouldn't fly, but I bet people would just obscure their true intent with a plausible story - "I wanted to make a language more beautiful than Ada, so I called it 'Linda', which means beautiful in Spanish"
I would imagine something like this happened for Linda itself, since I assume the author didn’t namedrop a porn actress in their PhD dissertation.