Skip to main content
Software Engineering

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

4
  • 1
    The first applications for computing equipement which used records were in business applications that mimicked ordinary business processes conducted on paper. The forms were called "records" and the things you filled in (as you say) were called "fields". And we're talking about a time before computers too: the equipment itself (typically based on punched cards) was called "unit record equipment" because they dealt with "records", one at a time ... Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 15:12
  • 3
    The suggestion that this use of the word came from heraldry is amusing, but not likely (IMO). Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 15:13
  • It's speculation, but there must have been a time before paper forms at which someone had to name the region to fill in on the paper form ... Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 15:13
  • It would have been papyrus. Maybe they called it a fylde. Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 23:27