[TUHS] etymology of cron

[lm@mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)]

What's troubling is wikipedia, I didn't realize they were that much of a pain.

On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 04:52:33PM -0800, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
> This has been a somewhat bizarre and troubling thread, all in all.
> 
> Would anybody want to discuss the origin of 'ls'?   Or 'at'?
> 
> Steve
> 
> PS: (that was NOT a serious suggestion!)
> 
> 
> 
> > On Thursday, 24 December 2015 at 10:17:53 -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> >> Clem Cole scripsit:
> >>
> >>> Rik in his role as the editor of ;login is going to try work with Doug
> >>> and
> >>> to get something "published" into the next edition which should satisfy
> >>> the
> >>> Wikipedia folks.   There is a minor issue is that Rik is technically
> >>> past
> >>> the deadline but due to the holiday, there are a few days of grace that
> >>> the
> >>> workers putting the issue together have said they will thankfully try
> >>> to
> >>> handle.
> >>>
> >>> So maybe we can have get this fixed shortly.
> >>
> >> I don't think so.  Is ;login: a peer-reviewed journal?  It doesn't
> >> look like it to me.
> >
> > One of the original references was from the proceedings of an AUUG
> > conference.  From personal experience I can confirm that the level of
> > review for the conferences fell far short of what USENIX did.
> >
> >> Still, the current state says:
> >>
> >>     The origin of the name cron is from the Greek word for
> >>     time, ???????????? (chronos), according to its author Ken
> >>     Thompson[2][better source needed]. Others have suggested that the
> >>     name comes from the Greek God Chronos[3] or that it is an acronym
> >>     for "Command Run On Notice"[4] or "Commands Run Over Night",[5]
> >>     but the references lack substantiation.
> >>
> >> Even if someone is still grumbling on the talk page, that doesn't
> >> substantially misrepresent anything that I can see.
> >
> > Yes, that last sentence was my update.  As I mentioned in an earlier
> > message, I think that it's appropriate that it should stay, if only to
> > stop people making the claim again in a more forceful manner.
> >
> > But it would be nice to be able to remove the [better source needed].
> > It seems that there's only one person objecting to the changes.  I've
> > asked him on the talk page what he really wants.
> >
> > Greg
> > --
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> >
> 

-- 
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Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm