Linda Etymology

last modified: August 14, 2004

Yes, there really is a language named after ex-porn actress Linda Lovelace.


From http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/homes/spaf/Yucks/V2/msg00008.html:

Date: Fri, 31 Jan 92 23:38:07 -0800
From: rissa@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Patricia O Tuama)
Subject: linda
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us

from the 1/19/92 New York Times, "DavidGelernter's Romance with Linda" (sect 3, p1,6)

When it came time to name the language, Mr Gelernter said he noted
that Ada was named after Ada Augusta Lovelace, the daughter of Lord
Byron, the English poet.  Miss Lovelace is regarded as the first
computer programmer because she worked for the computer pioneer
Charles Babbage.

Another woman named Lovelace was in the news when Mr Gelernter was
casting about for a name -- Linda Lovelace, a star of pornographic
films.  So he named the language Linda, and it stuck.  Asked about it
now, Mr Gelernter grins and shrugs, "I was a graduate student at the time," he said.

A search for "linda tuple lovelace" on Google turns up some other links, which at one time included a Linda Lovelace fan page that referred to the eponymous language.

And we would all watch the movie "Deep Thought" starring AdaLovelace.


See ProgrammingLanguageNamingPatterns


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