Difference between revisions of "Bootstrap (verb)"

Revision as of 08:16, 8 May 2015

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

From "to pull oneself over a fence by one's bootstraps", and similar early 19th-century American phrases. This is an impossible task, presented in an amusing way.

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.

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 steps 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.

Unlike the early 19th-century American bootstrappers, it is no longer possible for us, today, to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Perhaps those hardy pioneers had more upper-body strength. Maybe urbanization, modern life have taken their toll of the land itself -- the bootstrapping principle may gone, used up, played out. I don't know. All I know is that none of my boots have straps, so there's no point in trying.

Fortunately, computers actually do start up, and bootstrapping is just a metaphor.

Maybe it's for the best that early 19th-century American's didn't have computers. What if ours didn't start up today?