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This article lists 4 terms that it says originated with Mark I. But 3 of those terms were used in the Mark I because they already meant the correct thing. The o
by eridius 10y ago
This article lists 4 terms that it says originated with Mark I. But 3 of those terms were used in the Mark I because they already meant the correct thing. The only term to get effectively a new definition when applied to computers is "bug". So it seems kind of weird to say that e.g. "loop" originated with the Mark I when the definition of the word didn't change.
In fact this kind of brings to mind patents. "ordinary thing, done by a computer" is not particularly significant, neither in terminology nor patentable ideas.
- wnoise 10y agoEven "bug" was in usage for malfunctioning electronics before computers.
- empath75 10y ago'Loop' as a metaphor for a programming technique is perhaps less obvious than you think.
- xapata 10y agoThat's one of those things that sounds right only in hindsight. Without the paper tape metaphor, the control flow for repetition might have been called "repeat" or "iterate". The word "loop" is nice and short, but it's an odd thing to say without the physical clue. The word didn't come up in my mathematical proofs class. Instead of "patch" we probably would have said "fix" (we still sometimes do).
- eridius 10y agoThe control flow for repetition is in fact called "repeat" in some languages. I don't think the word "loop" stuck around because the metaphor of paper tapes is particularly compelling (especially since we stopped using those a long time ago), I think it stuck around because it's a good short word that means the right thing. And, for example, it's pretty awkward to say something like "a for repeat", but "a for loop" is nice and simple. We probably would have ended up on this word even without paper tapes.
- xapata 10y agoMaybe, but the combination of "loop" and "break" makes a lot more sense if you imagine physically breaking a loop of paper.