[TUHS] What does `ld` stand for?

[christopher fujino via TUHS]

It looks like the earliest source for `ld` I can find on TUHS is from v2:
https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V2/cmd/ld1.s

/ ld1 -- link editor

Could it stand for "link editor"?

- Chris

On Sun, Oct 25, 2026 at 10:58 AM Erik E. Fair <fair at clock.org> wrote:

> In some corners, programs were put together by a "loader" (as in, put a
> program into a state ready to be loaded into RAM for execution) rather than
> a linker, and it may be whoever named ld(1) had that in mind when picking
> minimal letters to type to invoke Unix programs. However, "loader" can also
> be short for "boot loader" (as in, the small amount of bootstrap code
> needed to load an OS as part of making a computer operationally useful).
>
> To be sure, you'd have to ask whoever wrote/named ld(1).
>
>         Erik
>