Eu sei que isso é antigo, mas foi lançado recentemente no Twitter, e pensei em compartilhá-lo por ser autoritário.
Eu:
@BrendanEich você escolheu esses nomes?
Ele:
Nomes antigos do Unix, difíceis de encontrar nas páginas de manual rn, mas consulte
https://www.unix.com/man-page/minix/1/btoa/… . Os nomes transferidos do Unix para a base de código do Netscape. Eu os refleti em JS com muita pressa em 1995 (após os dez dias de maio, mas em breve).
Caso o link do Minix se quebre, aqui está o conteúdo da página de manual:
BTOA(1) BTOA(1)
NAME
btoa - binary to ascii conversion
SYNOPSIS
btoa [-adhor] [infile] [outfile]
OPTIONS
-a Decode, rather than encode, the file
-d Extracts repair file from diagnosis file
-h Help menu is displayed giving the options
-o The obsolete algorithm is used for backward compatibility
-r Repair a damaged file
EXAMPLES
btoa <a.out >a.btoa # Convert a.out to ASCII
btoa -a <a.btoa >a.out
# Reverse the above
DESCRIPTION
Btoa is a filter that converts a binary file to ascii for transmission over a telephone
line. If two file names are provided, the first in used for input and the second for out-
put. If only one is provided, it is used as the input file. The program is a function-
ally similar alternative to uue/uud, but the encoding is completely different. Since both
of these are widely used, both have been provided with MINIX. The file is expanded about
25 percent in the process.
SEE ALSO
uue(1), uud(1).
Fonte: Brendan Eich, o criador do JavaScript. https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/998618208725684224