@stefan funny how many computer metaphors are actually literal.

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

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

@stefan

kind of Caveman style eh?

@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! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_bucket

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

@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.

@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

@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.

@stefan and bugs… have their own history

@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 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.

@stefan brings back memories...yes, I'm that old.

@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.

@stefan Ha ha, yes the OG software patch!

@stefan ayup

@stefan

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

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

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

@stefan the bug!! 😀

@stefan That is paper tape, not a punch card.

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

🎓 when?

@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?

@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!

@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 😭

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

@stefan much more satisfying than reverting something on git

@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.

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

@stefan I *love* this