P - Z

                                                 P

                                         Parallaxis
From: Thomas Braeunl <Braeunl@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de>

Hi Antreas,
the name PARALLAXIS originated when playing with the phrase
"PARALlel LAnguage for parallel architectures", so it almost fit that word. I have no greek heritage.
Yours Thomas

                                                Pari
From: bernardi@mathp6.jussieu.fr (Dominique Bernardi)

Well, this is a bad case of choosing a name without thinking first....
In fact, the original (Cohen, Batut, Olivier) designers thought it would be written in the Pascal language, and they exchanged jokes about Blaise Pascal's bet. Now 'bet' in french is 'pari'...

Dominique Bernardi, Theorie des Nombres
bernardi@mathp6.jussieu.fr

                                             PATMOS
PATMOS = Protected Address Translation Mode Operating System

From: Jonathan.Kimmitt@camcon.co.uk (Jonathan Kimmitt)

>Did you have in mind the greek island PATMOS ?

That's right. The place St. John was imprisoned when he had his revelation ...

                                                PDP 
PDP = Programmed Data Processor  

                                                PERL
PERL = The Practical Extraction and Report Language

From: Matthias Ulrich Neeracher <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 12:19:31 +0100

(...)
 - In the etymology section for Perl you could also mention the alternative reading "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister" (more greek words in this reading :-)
(...)

                                                PICO
Pico = Picture Composition

                                             Prograph
Prograph = Programming in graphics
 
                                              PROLOG
PROLOG = PROgramming In LOGic 

                                           Prometheus
From: jason@tracor.com (Jason Cohen)

Prometheus brought fire to the humans. Symbolically, he brought power and creativity. This is what Prometheus (the language) attempts to give the user. Plus, it's a good sounding name! :-) 

Jason Cohen
jason@tracor.com

                                              Proteus
From: "Lars S. Nyland" <nyland@cs.unc.edu>

>Why the greek name PROTEUS?  

In our limited understanding of Greek history, we found the name to have connotations that we desired.  Here are some of the words from the thesaurus that helped us choose it.

***** Word: proteus

Changeableness, mutability, versatility, mobility changeable, changeful; changing &c. 140; mutable, variable, checkered, ever changing; protean, proteiform|; versatile. plastic, mobile;
Of course, it has other connotations about instability, but we chose to ignore those.
We were looking for a word that meant "looks like whatever the viewer wants to see."
Our programming language is designed to apply to many different
parallel computers, yet the programmer who is programming the xyz computer from the abc manufacturer would see Proteus as a programming language for his machine.

Notes - Ed.:
1.- "Proteus, in Greek mythology, the prophetic old man of the sea and shepherd of the sea's flocks (e.g. seals) (...).
From his power of assuming whatever shape he pleased, Proteus came to be regarded by some as a symbol of the original matter from which the world was created" (Encycl. Britannica)
2.- "Proteus is the sixth of Neptune's known satellites and the second largest (...). Proteus was a sea god in Greek mythology who could change his shape at will." 
http://chandra.astro.indiana.edu/astronomy/nineplanets/proteus.html

                                               Python
From: Guido van Rossum <guido@CNRI.Reston.VA.US>

>Why the greek name PYTHON ?

I'm afraid it's not a greek name to me...  It's named after Monty
Python's Flying Circus, a BBC comedy series in the seventies (and
being rerun to this date!).

--Guido van Rossum <guido@CNRI.Reston.VA.US>
URL: <http://www.python.org/~guido/>

                                            ********
"Why is it called Python? 

Apart from being a computer scientist, I'm also a fan of "Monty
Python's Flying Circus" (a BBC comedy series from the seventies, in the -- unlikely -- case you didn't know). It occurred to me one day that I needed a name that was short, unique, and slightly mysterious. And I happened to be reading some scripts from the series at the time... So then I decided to call my language Python. But Python is not a joke. And don't you associate it with dangerous reptiles either! (If you need an icon, use an image of the 16-ton weight from the TV series or of a can of SPAM :-) "
Guido van Rossum (http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html)

Note - Ed.:
"Python, in Greek mythology, a huge serpent that was killed by the god Apollo at Delphi either because it would not let him found his oracle, being accustomed itself to giving oracles, or because it had persecuted Apollo's mother, Leto, during her pregnancy (...).
Pytho was the old name for Delphi. Python was traditionally the child of Gaea (Earth) who had an oracle at Delphi before Apollo came. (Encycl. Britannica)

                                                 Q

                                             QForth       
                                           *******
From: RTK <KNEUSEL@pa.msu.edu>

The guy to ask regarding the "Q" in "QForth" is the original author.  I suspect the "Q" is for "quick".  He is Toshiyasu Morita and I believe his email address is tm@netcom.com.

- Ron Kneusel
  rkneusel@post.its.mcw.edu

                                           *******

From: Toshiyasu Morita (tm@netcom.com)
It's short for "Quick".
Are you using QForth? Do you like it?

Toshi

                                           Quinta
One can see this program message: Quinta Debugger  -  Proverbs 16:3, which has probably some relation with the name. (see: Harvest C of the same religious programmer.)

                                                 R

                                           RAMSES 
RAMSES = Research Aids for Modeling and Simulation of Environmental Systems

                                          *******
From:  Frank Thommen  <thommen@ito.umnw.ethz.ch> 

hi,

at the moment I'm the only person not being in holidays and i'm not one of the creators of RAMSES, but as far as i know, they really HAD the ancient pharao in mind when they created the acronym.
if not, you'll get an other answer as soon as the others are back to work in some weeks.

greetings from switzerland
frank thommen

Note-Ed.:
There is another one RAMSES (Reorganization for an
Automated Management System and Enhanced Services). 
http://www.snl.ch/ramses.html

                                           ReWrite
"ReWrite ... uses a rewrite rule syntax"  (Lang. doc)

                                              Rexx
"This new language, initially called REX (because the name sounded nice)  (...)  its name gained an "X" to avoid any confusion with other products."
http://rexx.hursley.ibm.com/rexx/rexxhist.htm

Note:
Bill N. Vlachoudis's etynology: REXX = Restructured  EXtended eXecutor
ftp://rexx.uwaterloo.ca/pub/freerexx/brexx/ 
ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/rexx/uwaterloo/freerexx/brexx/
ftp://ftp.sterling.com/programming/languages/rexx/freerexx/brexx/ 

                                              RLaB
From the "help INTRO" command:
Introduction to RLaB  "Our"-LaB.
 
                                          *******

From: ians@eskimo.com (Ian Searle)

I am in the midst of writing an article, here is the opening paragraph.
-Ian

First of all, \rlab\ stands for ``our''-lab. It is available to almost everyone who needs a computational tool for scientific and engineering applications, because it is freely-available, and it runs on many platforms.

                                              RPN
"It uses Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) logic in its calculations (...)" (Lang doc)

                                                 S

The three Greek touristic S's: Sex, Souvlaki, and Syrtaki.
--> In Liberation (Paris newspaper)

The  five Greek touristic S's:  Sun, Sea, Sand, Sex, and Souvlaki.
--> In a Greek newspaper

                                            Scheme
Scheme : originally "Schemer", by analogy with Planner and Conniver (The Language List)
                                           *******
From: "Paul Snively" <psnively@activision.com>

>(SCM = SCheMe ? )

Antreas,

That's a good question.  You'd have to ask the author, Aubrey Jaffer, about his choice of names.

The language name, Scheme, is simply the six-character abbreviation of Schemer, which Guy Steele and Gerald Sussman chose as the name to compete with other popular MIT AI languages of the day, e.g. Conniver and Planner.

Paul Snively

                                               SCM
From: Aubrey Jaffer <jaffer@martigny.ai.mit.edu>

> SCM = SCheMe ?

It was that and also because MIT Scheme and some other implementation Scheme files have the .scm suffix.

==
I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.
My actions and comments do not reflect in any way on MIT.

                                               SETL
SETL = SET Language

                                               SIOD
SIOD = Scheme In One Defun (*or* Day: The Free Compiler List)

                                               SML
SML = Standard ML

                                            STDWIN
STDWIN = STandarD Window INterface

                                               STM
STM = Stop The Madness

                                               SUIT
SUIT = The Simple User Interface Toolkit

                                                 T

                                              TADS
TADS = The Text Adventure Development System 

                                              Texx
From: Jose Aguirre <71407.441@compuserve.com>

>(From your phrase: "Texx will give a  Taste of REXX" maybe ?)

When I started writing TEXX, I didn't know if the name REXX was copyrighted. Not wanting to have IBM sue me, especially since I was unemployed at the time, I needed a different name.  I was going to change the 'R' to an 'S', but I figured the name 'SEXX' might offend some people.  So I changed the 'R' to a 'T'.  A lot of people think that I named it TEXX because I live in Texas, such is not the case.  I plan to rename it to something like 'MacREXX' or 'REXX/Mac'.  Do you have any ideas?

Jose Aguirre

                                                  TCL
TCL= Tool Command Language

                                              Thomas
From: Brent Benson <bwb@concentra.com>

# 1. The language names Dylan and Thomas are after Dylan M. Thomas (like Ada and  Haskell, after Ada Lovelace and Haskell Curry) ?
# I think that DYLAN = DYNamic LANguage.

You are correct---Dylan comes from DYnamic LANguage.  The names of the freely available Dylan implementations have developed out of word play with the word Dylan.

# 2. Who is Dylan M. Thomas ?

Dylan M. Thomas was a well-known Welsh poet.

Note -Ed:
A Painting of Dylan Thomas (by Rupert Shepard) see at:
http://www.cis.ufl.edu/~jnw/Marlais/ 

                                             Tickle
From: time@ice.com (Tim Endres)

> [ T (i) C (k) L (e)  ?]

Yes.
I used to pronoune tcl as "tickle", so that is what I named it.

tim.

                                            Timbre
From: Rob Chapman <rob@idacom.hp.com>

The reference of the name is related to music in that an instrument with quality (richness in sound) has timbre.  Timbre is meant to be part of a computing instrument so that one might say about it: "It has Timbre".

Rob

                                                TOS
Tape Operating System

                                                TPM
TPM = Transparent Prolog Machine 

                                            Tricia  PROLOG
From: Per.Mildner@CSD.UU.SE (Per Mildner)

It is from the book The Hitchhikers Guide (Tricia has been known as MacMillan as well).

Per Mildner                      
http://www.csd.uu.se/~perm/

                                            TYCOON
TYCOON  =  TYped COmmunicating Objects in Open eNvironments

                                                U

                                         UCB Logo
UCB Logo = The University of Californis at Berkeley Logo

                                            UNIX
UNIX : Not an acronym at all. Was a joke on MIT's MULTICS. (operating system)
http://haleakala.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/acrom.sh?unix

                                                V

                                             VSCM
VSCM = Virtual Machine SCM  (?)
"VSCM is based on a virtual machine written in ANSI C (...)"
(Lang. doc.)
                                                W

                                                 X

                                              XLisp
From: bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig)

> What is the meaning of X in XLisp?

I don't know for certain; probably "eXtended" or something like that. I didn't choose the name.

Brian Kendig 
bskendig@netcom.com 
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/bs/bskendig/home.html

                                              XLisp-Stat
XLISP-STAT = XLISP-STATistical

                                               XYZ
XYZ = eXperimental geometrY Zuerich

                                                 Y

                                              Yerk
"It was originally known as Neon, developed and sold as a product by Kriya Systems from 1985 to 1989. Several of us at The University of Chicago have maintained Yerk since its demise as a product. Because of the possible trademark conflict that Kriya mentions, we picked the name Yerk, which is at least not an acronym for anything, but rather stands for Yerkes Observatory, part of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at U of C."
(Lang. doc.)

                                             Yorick
From: munro@icf.llnl.gov (David H. Munro)

Shakespeare.  Hamlet.  Gravedigger scene.  Worth reading if you haven't.

Dave

                                                 Z