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Comment by jamesemmott

6 days ago

This original sense of 'call' (deriving from the 'call number' used to organize books and other materials in physical libraries) was also responsible for the coinage of 'compiler', according to Grace Hopper: 'The reason it got called a compiler [around 1952] was that each subroutine was given a "call word", because the subroutines were in a library, and when you pull stuff out of a library you compile things. It's as simple as that.'

I invoke them :]

I just connected the dots... The identifier digits in the Dewey Decimal classification are called "call numbers" !

  • Yes, that's in the second paragraph of the article.

    • I took this to be a pun on "decimal" and "connecting the dots" but perhaps I'm just wired to see puns where they weren't necessarily intended.

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