phipps@garth.UUCP (Clay Phipps) (04/12/90)
In article <7509@sbcs.sunysb.edu>, sanjiva@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Sanjiva Prasad) writes: > >Some time ago Richard O'Keefe had asked some questions about >the first usages of certain commonly used terms. [...] it is worthwhile >to compile a "computer science jargon vocabulary/lexicon", >1) COMPILER: According to my Merriam Webster New Collegiate: "compile": from Latin "compilare": "to plunder". 1: "to collect into a volume"; 2: "to compose out of materials from other documents". Although it's too late now, I'm convinced that "compiler" would be more appropriately applied to what is often today called a "loader" or "linkage editor" -- at least that would be closest to the word's long-standing meaning for literature. Consider: "a compilation of essays". Incidentally, my _Cassell's New Compact Latin Dictionary_ does not contain an entry for "compilare", nor the likely 1st-person singular present-tense: "compilo". Cassell's does not cover postclassical (i.e.: later than 100 AD) Latin. The classical and similar-sounding "compellare": "to reproach, rebuke [, or legal:] "to accuse before a court" may well have presaged the diagnostic style of some modern-day compilers :-). -- [The foregoing may or may not represent the position, if any, of my employer, ] [ who is identified solely to allow the reader to account for personal biases.] Clay Phipps Intergraph APD: 2400#4 Geng Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303; 415/852-2327 UseNet (Intergraph internal): ingr!apd!phipps UseNet (external): {apple,pyramid,sri-unix}!garth!phipps EcoNet: cphipps