Editing SNOBOL (section)

== Naming ==

According to Dave Farber,<ref>[http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/2008/12/sort/time_rev/page/1/entry/0:180/20081226091150:1B4F85B0-D357-11DD-ABF7-AB09AB975BFC/ WORTH READING Wikipedia entry on SNOBOL {{--}} the TRUE story NOT Wikipedias] (Dave Farber, Interesting People mailing list, 26 December 2008)</ref> he, Griswold and Polonsky "finally arrived at the name Symbolic EXpression Interpreter SEXI."

{{Blockquote|All went well until one day I was submitting a batch job to assemble the system and as normal on my JOB [[Punched card|card]] {{--}} the first card in the deck, I, in BTL standards, punched my job and my name {{--}} SEXI Farber.

One of the Comp Center girls looked at it and said, "That's what you think" in a humorous way.

That made it clear that we needed another name!! We sat and talked and drank coffee and shot rubber bands and after much too much time someone said {{--}} most likely Ralph {{--}} "We don't have a [[wikt:snowball's chance in hell|Snowball's chance in hell]] of finding a name". All of us yelled at once, "WE GOT IT {{--}} SNOBOL" in the spirit of all the [[COBOL|BOL languages]]. We then stretched our mind to find what it stood for.}}

Common [[backronym]]s of "SNOBOL" are 'String Oriented Symbolic Language'<ref>''Computers and the humanities'' '''1''':158, 1967.</ref> or (as a [[Acronym and initialism|quasi-initialism]]) 'StriNg Oriented symBOlic Language'.<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Jack |editor-last=Belzer |editor2-first=Albert G. |editor2-last=Holzman |editor3-first=Allen |editor3-last=Kent |chapter=SNOBOL |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CEGXR7FeAWQC&dq=SNOBOL&pg=PA173 |title=Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology |publisher=CRC Press |volume=13 |date=1979 |isbn=0-8247-2263-9 |pages=173 }}</ref>