In
computing, an early tradition in the
hacker community, especially at
MIT, was to choose acronyms and abbreviations that referred humorously to themselves or to other abbreviations. Perhaps the earliest example in this context is the
backronym "Mash Until No Good", which was created in 1960 to describe
Mung, and revised to "Mung Until No Good". It lived on as a recursive command in the editing language
TECO.
[3] In 1977 programmer Ted Anderson coined TINT ("TINT Is Not
TECO"), an editor for MagicSix. This inspired the two MIT
Lisp Machine editors called
EINE ("EINE Is Not
Emacs", German for
one) and
ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially", German for
two), in turn inspiring Anderson's retort SINE ("SINE is not EINE").
Richard Stallman followed with
GNU (GNU's Not
Unix). Recursive acronym examples often include negatives, such as denials that the thing defined is or resembles something else (which the thing defined does in fact resemble or is even derived from), to indicate that, despite the similarities, it was distinct from the program on which it was based. An earlier example appears in a 1976 textbook on data structures, in which the pseudo-language SPARKS is used to define the algorithms discussed in the text. "SPARKS" is claimed to be a non-acronymic name, but "several cute ideas have been suggested" as expansions of the name. One of the suggestions is the
tail recursive "Smart Programmers Are Required to Know SPARKS". Other examples are the
YAML language, which stands for "YAML ain't markup language" and
PHP language meaning "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor".
Examples •
Allegro: Allegro Low LEvel Game ROutines (early versions for Atari ST were called "Atari Low Level Game Routines") •
AROS: AROS Research Operating System (originally Amiga Research Operating System) •
ATI: ATI Technologies Inc. •
BING: BING Is Not Google •
BIRD: BIRD Internet Routing Daemon •
CAVE: CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment •
Darcs: Darcs Advanced Revision Control System •
EINE: EINE Is Not Emacs •
FIJI: FIJI Is Just
ImageJ •
GiNaC: GiNaC is Not a CAS (Computer Algebra System) •
GNE (encyclopedia): GNE's Not Encyclopedia •
GNU: GNU's Not Unix •
GPE: GPE Palmtop Environment •
gRPC: grpc Remote Procedure Calls •
Hurd: "Hurd" stands for "Hird of Unix-Replacing
Daemons", "Hird" stands for "Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth." •
JACK: JACK Audio Connection Kit •
JOE: Joe's Own Editor •
KGS: KGS Go Server •
LAME: LAME Ain't
MP3 Encoder •
LiVES: LiVES is Video Editing System •
MATE: MATE Advanced Traditional Environment • MINDY: MINDY Is Not
Dylan Yet •
MiNT: MiNT is Not TOS (later changed to "MiNT is Now TOS") •
MINT: MINT Is Not
TRAC •
Mung: Mung Until No Good •
Nagios: Nagios Ain't Gonna Insist On Sainthood (a reference to the previous name of Nagios, "Netsaint";
agios [αγιος] is the Greek word for "saint") •
NiL: NiL Isn't Liero •
npm: npm is not an acronym •
PHP: PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (from "Personal Home Page Tools", more frequently referenced as "PHP Tools.") •
PINE: PINE Is Nearly
Elm, originally; PINE now officially stands for "Pine Internet News E-mail" • PINT: PINT Is Not
TEMPO3 •
PIP: PIP Installs Packages •
P.I.P.S.: P.I.P.S. Is POSIX Symbian •
PNG: officially "Portable Network Graphics", but unofficially "PNG's not GIF". •
RPM: RPM Package Manager •
SPARQL: SPARQL Protocol And RDF Query Language • TAP:
TAP Air Portugal •
TikZ: TikZ ist kein Zeichenprogramm (German; TikZ is not a drawing program) •
TiLP: TiLP is Linking Program •
TIP: TIP isn't
Pico •
TRESOR: TRESOR Runs Encryption Securely Outside RAM •
UIRA: UIRA Isn't Recursive Acronym •
WINE: WINE Is Not an Emulator •
XAMPP: XAMPP Apache MariaDB PHP Perl •
XBMC: XBMC Media Center (originally Xbox Media Center) •
XINU: XINU Is Not Unix •
XNA: XNA's Not Acronym'd •
YAML: YAML Ain't Markup Language (initially "Yet Another Markup Language") •
YARA: Yara: Another Recursive Acronym •
Zinf: Zinf Is Not FreeAmp •
ZWEI: ZWEI Was EINE Initially ("eine" and "zwei" are German for "one" and "two" respectively) ==Other examples==