From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
DDT
n 1: an insecticide that is also toxic to animals and humans;
banned in the United States since 1972 [syn:
{dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane}, {DDT}]
From The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003) [jargon]:
DDT
/D?D?T/, n.
[from the insecticide para-dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethene]
1. Generic term for a program that assists in debugging other programs by
showing individual machine instructions in a readable symbolic form and
letting the user change them. In this sense the term DDT is now archaic,
having been widely displaced by debugger or names of individual programs
like adb, sdb, dbx, or gdb.
2. [ITS] Under MIT's fabled {ITS} operating system, DDT (running under the
alias HACTRN, a six-letterism for ?Hack Translator?) was also used as the
{shell} or top level command language used to execute other programs.
3. Any one of several specific DDTs (sense 1) supported on early {DEC}
hardware and CP/M. The PDP-10 Reference Handbook (1969) contained a
footnote on the first page of the documentation for DDT that illuminates
the origin of the term:
Historical footnote: DDT was developed at MIT for the PDP-1 computer in
1961. At that time DDT stood for ?DEC Debugging Tape?. Since then, the
idea of an on-line debugging program has propagated throughout the
computer industry. DDT programs are now available for all DEC
computers. Since media other than tape are now frequently used, the
more descriptive name ?Dynamic Debugging Technique? has been adopted,
retaining the DDT abbreviation. Confusion between DDT-10 and another
well known pesticide, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane C[14]H[9]Cl[5]
should be minimal since each attacks a different, and apparently
mutually exclusive, class of bugs.
(The ?tape? referred to was, incidentally, not magnetic but paper.) Sadly,
this quotation was removed from later editions of the handbook after the
{suit}s took over and {DEC} became much more ?businesslike?.
The history above is known to many old-time hackers. But there's more:
Peter Samson, compiler of the original {TMRC} lexicon, reports that he
named DDT after a similar tool on the TX-0 computer, the direct ancestor of
the PDP-1 built at MIT's Lincoln Lab in 1957. The debugger on that
ground-breaking machine rejoiced in the name FLIT (FLexowriter
Interrogation Tape). Flit was for many years the trade-name of a popular
insecticide.
From V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (June 2013) [vera]:
DDT
Dynamic Debugging Tool (DEC)
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