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Stefan Bohacek

So apparently the term "patch" in software development comes from punch cards.

"Small corrections to the programmed sequence could be done by patching over portions of the paper tape and re-punching the holes in that section."

chsi.harvard.edu/harvard-ibm-m

#til #computers #development #language #history

45 comments
Stefan Bohacek

Shout out to @codrops for including this tidbit in one of their recent newsletters.

Shiitake Toast-for Harris

@stefan funny how many computer metaphors are actually literal.

Shiitake Toast-for Harris

@stefan I remember those buttons on the car stereo! I had no idea that’s why they were called that in computing. I thought it’s because they were round and it had something to do with radians.

Large Format Projectionist

@ShiitakeToast @stefan

Except when they’re exactly the opposite: bootstrapping originally referred to the IMPOSSIBILITY of self-starting, of lifting one’s self by one’s own bootstraps. By 1922, usage had utterly reversed the meaning. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstra

Shiitake Toast-for Harris

@Benhm3 @stefan I always think of that as the statistics term. But that’s a good one.

Pusher Of Pixels

@ShiitakeToast @stefan '

The other fun thing was sticking one card in a deck that had every hole punched out. Machine shredded it and jammed.

ROLLER

@stefan love the explanation for the term bug in this article.

SpaceLifeForm

@stefan

And doing Add Change Delete with Hollerith cards.

Which is where the term Record came from.

For, in the olden daze, you would load your program with cards, and then feed it your database (not joking) that was stored on cards, and then the program could punch new cards with the updated database.

You did not want to drop a stack of cards.

Which is why they would have a sequence number, so you could manually sort the stack.

It is genius that the cards are both human readable and machine readable.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punche

@stefan

And doing Add Change Delete with Hollerith cards.

Which is where the term Record came from.

For, in the olden daze, you would load your program with cards, and then feed it your database (not joking) that was stored on cards, and then the program could punch new cards with the updated database.

gburg

@stefan I thought it was named after the software great Patch McHenry.

aprilfollies

@stefan My Mominlaw likes to tell us what a “bit bucket” was, back in the punch card days, when she was one of the people punching out the bits! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_bu

n8chz ⒶⒺ

@stefan Hmmmmm, wonder what would happen if one were to tape over one of the sprocket holes...

Marty Fouts

@stefan It’s a plausible etymology but not consistent with my memory. I recall patch being used as a verb first, in the sense “to make a small incomplete repair”. But both the noun and verb predated punch cards and the use for punch cards derived from the small piece of cloth used to cover a hole in clothing. To make it more confusing, “patch cord” was used before paper tape or punch cards to describe the cables used to program early computers.

argv minus one

@MartyFouts

I've heard of Ethernet cables being called patch cords. Not sure why.

@stefan

Arthur van der Harg

@MartyFouts @stefan I’m not surprised to find clothing/fabric related metaphors with punch cards. They were originally used in Jacquard looms to define patterns. So it’s natural to call a small repair using a bit of replacement material a “patch”.

:jan:‍:abreath:‍‍🌬:dandelion:

@stefan Ive worked with someone that did this. I keep trying to get them to write a book about her experiences about the culture of the early tech scene. Very telling as to why it's become what it is today

arrbee

@stefan
Having used both in my time I can assure you that punch cards and paper tape are totally different things.
My understanding of "patch" was that it dates back to when computer hardware comprised a mass of separately wired components, where a failed item could be 'patched around' by rerouting the relevant wiring.

Steveg58

@stefan
Punch Cards != Paper Tape.
Because paper tape is spliceable you can cut out an un-wanted section and patch in a replacement section which need not be the same length.
With punch cards you would just replace one or more cards. However some languages used sequence numbers on the cards (so a deck could be restored if dropped)(almost never worth the time) which made adding or removing cards problematic. Quickly there were tools to renumber programs so a "patch" could be inserted. And so the terminology migrated.

@stefan
Punch Cards != Paper Tape.
Because paper tape is spliceable you can cut out an un-wanted section and patch in a replacement section which need not be the same length.
With punch cards you would just replace one or more cards. However some languages used sequence numbers on the cards (so a deck could be restored if dropped)(almost never worth the time) which made adding or removing cards problematic. Quickly there were tools to renumber programs so a "patch" could be inserted. And so the...

Andreas, DJ3EI, he/him

If you knew what you were doing, your punch card sequence numbers went 10, 20, 30, ... . So you could insert cards if you needed to.

@Steveg58 @stefan

Jennifer

@stefan when I was very young I remember going to my dad's postdoc job at a university physics lab. They had lots of old punch cards I could play with. This is a great story I didn't know about.

Steve's Place

@stefan That looks like punch tape, where it might be useful. With punch cards, you'd just toss the bad one and type up another, run your cards through the collator, and you'd be good to go.

TrueFluke

@stefan Ha ha, yes the OG software patch!

Paul_IPv6

@stefan

so we've been duct taping our software for years? :)

Doug Baker

@stefan I used punch cards 55 years ago- I don’t recall patches.

Chris Williams

@stefan Why am I just now learning about this? Been coding for too many years to have never heard this fact yet.

Chirayu :verified: :twit:

@stefan @janeadams knew about the origin of 🐞 bugs; now I have learned about the patch.

🎓 when?

Daniel Lyons

@stefan very cool! Thanks for sharing.

Wasn’t there a story somewhere about the computer word “boot” meaning you literally had to kick the computer with a boot?

Atomic Fox

@dandylyons @stefan

It's from "bootstrap" as in "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps", a metaphor which is sufficiently visual and ridiculous as to be self-explanatory for most folks.

LadyTotalofPeedOff

@stefan That takes me back. My first introduction to computers at school way back in the 1970s in Maths lessons was doing punch cards. Never made any sense to me and thought these things will never catch on!

Tattooed Mummy

@stefan you want to know something depressing, in my first civil servant job we still used ticker tape (punch tape) to send and receive data. I'm only 58 😭

Raul Portales

@stefan I knew about bugs, but never thought about patches, I love it!

Pelle S Christensen

@stefan much more satisfying than reverting something on git

Dragoniff

@stefan I wasn't aware of that! Fun fact for anyone that's interested: Punch cards were actually called such because, due to limited computing power of the time, programmers that wrote incorrect or buggy code would be beaten up by all the other developers in their department.
True story.

Doug 🌈🇨🇦 :verified:

@stefan I only used punch tape once, on a PDP8. It was painful.

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