Bootstrap (verb)

To bootstrap something -- typically a computer -- is to activate it.

Description

From "to pull oneself over a fence by one's bootstraps", and similar early 19th-century American phrases.

Typically expressed as an amusing story in which the protagonist performs an impossible task.

I want to get over the fence, but I don't want to jump that high. I'll reach down, grab the straps of my boots, and pull myself up in the air, just a little bit. That way, when I make my jump, I'll be that much higher off the ground when I start.

But now that I've pulled myself up a little bit, why not pull a little harder, get a little more height? So I do.

And by repeating this process, I proceed over the fence.

Computer bootstrapping

By analogy, a computer (hardware, no software) stands on one side of the fence, and needs to get to the other side of the fence (hardware running software).

The fence represents the effort required to load an operating system into the hardware.

The computer needs to "pull itself up a little bit" (start running some software) so that initial piece of software can load more software (jump higher), and so on, until a complete operating system is installed.

Parable

It is, apparently, not possible for us to literally pull ourselves up and over fences by our bootstraps.

I certainly can't do it, and nobody I know even talks about it, let alone tries.

It seems we are now able to bootstrap ourselves over fences in a metaphorical sense alone.

Perhaps those early 19th-century American phrase-makers -- hardy pioneers of the linguistic plains and prairies, the forests and mountains and valleys -- had better-developed upper-body strength. Or lighter, more gracious feet. Or good rough calluses on their hands, built from, and suitable for, honest labor with axe and plow and pick. Or better schooling in grammar.

Maybe urbanization and modern life have taken their toll of the land itself.

The bootstrapping principle may used up, played out, gone.

I don't know.

All I know is, there is no point trying, as none of my boots have straps. They're all lace-ups.

Good news

Fortunately, computers actually do start up and run, and bootstrapping computers is a metaphor alone, not a literal fact.

Last word

Maybe it's for the best that early 19th-century Americans didn't have computers.

We sure would be in a pickle if computer bootstrapping vanished like fence bootstrapping, wouldn't we?

See also

• Bootstrap (framework)

External links

• Bootstrapping @ Wikipedia