truss-name.txt

 | From: "Roger A. Faulkner" <Roger.Faulkner@Eng>
 | Subject: Re: curiosity: truss?
 | Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 23:34:47 -0800 (PST)
 |
 | For your edification, this is the geneaology of the name "truss"
 | (taken from some mail dated Sep 26, 1988)
 | This was when Ron Gomes and I were jointly developing the first
 | /proc for SVR4 at USL.
 | -----------------------------------------------------------------
 |
 | We considered, and discarded, several alternative names for truss(1),
 | including "trace", before settling on "truss".  The objection to
 | "trace" is that it's too generic a term and shouldn't be co-opted
 | for a specific use like this; there are lots of other things that
 | one might trace.  Among the alternate names we considered were:
 | "ptrace"  (but this incorrectly implies a connection with ptrace(2)),
 | "strace"  (but this is already used for some streams tracing thing),
 | "tss"     for "trace syscalls and signals" (but this is certainly bad),
 | "sst"     a permutation of "tss" (but this implies it's blinding fast),
 | "trss"    another variation of "tss" (but this is unpronouncable).
 | Adding the obvious vowel gave us "truss", which can be construed
 | to mean "TRace Unix Syscalls and Signals".
 |  
 | "truss" seems to have the right combination of mnemonic value
 | and disrespect for authority ("If your program doesn't work, put
 | it in a truss.")  It conjures up a mental image which is fairly
 | accurate, considering what the program does.