A lot of older books, white papers, and even kernels used the word dæmon, rather than daemon, but at some point between now and the early 2000s that trend changed. Does anyone know when this trend changed? Does anyone know why it changed (if there's a reason the community cited at some point)4?
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@MCW you're right, good catch, I meant "cited". The history of the ash is not the same as the history of programming, daemon development and/or terms. This would've been more clear by the reference to stack overflow, I think, but I guess that reference was removed.
At a guess it was dropped simply because the standard keyboards for manual typewriters, teletype machines and then computer terminals didn't include the dipthong, so it was quicker to type "ae" than to access a special character to display "æ".
@KillingTime I figure it might be a convenience thing, but it had been done for so long using the ash that I thought there might be a standardized guide for when/if to use one over the other or a historical statement from William Gates, Brian Kernighan, or Linus Torvalds even.
@KillingTime That is probably it, but (also) the other way round? Notice the timeframe? Exactly when it became much easier to enter the ligature it got simplified in common usage? Looks to me like a lack of distinction in typists prowess played a role then. The other thing might of course bring in eternal September effects of not just simplification, 'good enough for everyone', just dumbing down… Then the distinction between daimon & demon, the latter conjuring controversy even now.
This is the oldest reference in which I can find mention of daemons, but it doesn't use the ash. It also doesn't explain the coining of the term and in other documentation given by MIT it appears it should have been around, as a term, since about 1963. people.csail.mit.edu/saltzer/CTSS/CTSS-Documents/…
That "ash symbol" was not on most American typewriters and is not part of ASCII. I don't know what kernels you think you found it in (perhaps you thing "Linux kernel" == "Kernel"?), but its a pretty good bet they weren't US-created and/or weren't very "early" (and those two things tend to go hand-in-hand).
Please edit all clarifications in (instead of just commenting). After a short search on this I get the impression that both spellings were all the time in parallel, with 'ae' even getting more hits in gBooks than 'æ'? Please try to demonstrate that æ was not just used at the same time, but actually in the majority of texts…
I've just checked all of the old Unix/Linux manuals I have, going all the way back to a AT&T Unix System V user manual from 1986...and they all use daemon rather than dæmon. Not particularly conclusive I admit but I'm not sure that there was a great shift from one spelling to the other.
@KillingTime Why would "specific Usage' be off-t on EL-U ? (Also see the prior related posts over there) // Generally, it appears as if RetrocomputingSE would also be a candidate site for asking this? Prerequisite imo that either the assertion is proven in Q, or the Q asks more generally, whether this really is/was the case to begin with, not just a guesstimate private observation not found in this way in the wild past?
@KillingTime Based upon the meta I linked before you'd be incorrect, this site has specifically requested that technical questions on term etymology be directed to history. As I said my post, before someone edited it out, if you dislike it you should start a meta discussion on it to dispute it. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/343030/…
@NationWidePants What am I wrong about? I'm pretty sure that this would get closed on ELU (which your link doesn't mention at all). Also the post you link to is in no way authoritative, it's written by a SO user and is simply their opinion. SO users don't dictate what is or isn't on topic here.
I’m voting to close this question because the evidence provided in the question doesn't seem to support the assertion that "older books, white papers, and even kernels used the word dæmon, rather than daemon".
@SteveBird How many sources do I need to post? I did post one, do I need 10? There's a level of absurdity in the assertion that one is not enough. This seems like an issue for a meta rather than a close request.
@MCW "its traditional name in English is still ash, or æsh if the ligature is included." I think ligature just refers to the conjoining of the letters rather than a reference to the name, ash symbol itself.
The first couple of words of the sentence you quote are relevant "As a letter of the Old English alphabet its traditional name"... daemon was never in Old English. (if you can trace Unix processes to Old English, I think I can ensure you a doctorate from any university you want.) The first sentence of the Wikipedia entry describes ae as a ligature, which is the relevant section
@MCW You said "wikipedia makes that clear" in regard to the ash symbol being called a ligature. I've cited the source you used and it seems to make a distrinction between the conjoining (or ligature) and the symbol itself, as stated in the quote I presented using your stated source of authority. I'm not certain what you're actually trying to state because it seems to indicate otherwise on wikipedia and I'm trying to understand.
Can you clarify what you mean when you say that "kernels" used the ligature? It seems like you are probably referring to Unix kernels, but what does it mean for them to "use" the ligature? Do you mean use it in their character set? Use it in their documentation? Require users to enter it under pain of segmentation fault?
@RobertColumbia Do you realise that you mv2chat a 'young' comment thread you yourself keep active & alive with very relevant clarification requests? Our mv2chat policy might need 'discussion' anyway… Time for a metaQ?
@LаngLаngС sure, sounds like clarifying that with the community would be helpful. In any event, I did a mv2chat because of the length of the comment thread and how it was becoming a back-and-forth discussion. The purpose of mv2chat is to move and preserve discussions out of the comment box and into a more appropriate medium. So, it's perfectly fine to have a long discussion here about clarifying the question.
'Clarification' vs 'extended discussion' I'd see as quite distinct, generally. Then the perceived lack of 'pruning' from mods, + 'mv2chat to 'kill controversy/discussions''… There's IMO ample need for metaQ discussion, imo. Would you like to initiate this meta? (will be afk for a few days more…) [I know not that much about procedures, but that mods might ignore or 'extend' the 20+msgs alert would be one option, repeated pruning another].
Which might of course reflect back onto the 'SE-model'/policy/MetaSE: some comments are needed (long term), not just 'barn cats(killed quickly, without hesitation)', some are obviously 'foul'…
But unless we sent some delegates over to MetaSE to make that point: I'd suggest to have a serious meta-H:SE-round over this…
Discussion on question by NationWideP…
Discussion on question by NationWideP…