Gregory's ServerSo 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."
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@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. 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#Etymology  The other fun thing was sticking one card in a deck that had every hole punched out. Machine shredded it and jammed.  @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 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.  @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”.  @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   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.   @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 Why am I just now learning about this? Been coding for too many years to have never heard this fact yet. @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?  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. @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 😭    |
Shout out to @codrops for including this tidbit in one of their recent newsletters.