[TUHS] Origin of the name 'strategy'

Dave Horsfall dave at horsfall.org
Wed Jan 9 15:42:32 AEST 2019


On Tue, 8 Jan 2019, Warner Losh wrote:

> The name seems obvious because I've seen it for the last 30 years. But 
> I've not seen it used elsewhere, nor have I seen it documented except in 
> relationship to Unix. It could have been called blkio or bufio or bio or 
> even just work or morework and still been as meaningful. VMS uses the 
> FDT table to process the IRPs sent down. RT-11 has a series of entry 
> points that have boring names. Other systems have a start routine 
> (though more often that is a common routine used by both the queue me 
> and isr functions). There is a wide diversity here...

I must admit that this is an interesting thread, just as long as it wasn't 
called XXoptimize() unless you wanted a backlash from British English 
speakers :-)

In hindsight I suppose that XXstrategy() is obvious, but back then, as you 
ask?  Dunno, but Ken might (if he's reading this thread).

One of my favo[u]rites is sched(); some pronounce it as "shed" and others 
as "sked".  Another American/British thing, I think...

Wasn't it Mark Twain who said "Two nations divided by a common language"?

I no longer have my Lions books on me, sadly enough (lost in a house move) 
but there certainly were some peculiar names in the kernel...

ObGripe: Could anyone replying to the digest version please take the 
trouble to update the Subject: line accordingly?  I've now put the 
original back as a courtesy to others, but I shouldn't have to; it's as 
bad as top-posting.

-- Dave


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