What is Bootstrapping?
Here I describe four different uses of "bootstrapping" as a term. A human wrote this (me) so it may be riddled with inaccuracies, spelling mistakes, and biases (as humans do).
First, a little bit on the history of "bootstrapping" - what did this mean in a historical context?
According to reputable sources, such as Investopedia, the origin of the term is unclear, but other related sayings include:
I was always taught that providing background and context is helpful, so I guess that was.
Anyway, the first use of the term is in a Business sense, and that Investopedia article did seem helpful here:
1) Bootstrapping is the minimalistic business culture approach to starting a company, which is characterized by extreme sparseness and simplicity. It usually refers to the starting of a self-sustaining process that is supposed to proceed without external input.
That article goes through methods, stages, and goals, and even provides some examples of companies that have gone from bootstrapped beggars (not the term they used) to Earth destroying behemoths (also not the term they used). Well, here are the examples:
I think I can speak for all of us when I say that these, truly, represent our aspirations as humans and societies.
The second use of the term is in a statistics sense, and this one is pretty neat:
领英推荐
2) Bootstrapping is a resampling procedure that uses data from one sample to generate a sampling distribution by repeatedly taking random samples from the known sample, with replacement... Sampling with replacement is important. If we did not sample with replacement, we would always get the same sample median as the observed value. The sample we get from sampling from the data with replacement is called the bootstrap sample.
Source: Penn State University. I really recommend reading that whole article if this topic is interesting to you.
The third use of the term is in an Information Technology (IT) context, which you would think would be my favourite, but my favourite is actually number four!
In IT, this term has been around for a long time, and essentially comes down to:
3) Bootstrapping roughly means to create a self-sustaining system from scratch. In compiler development it is the practice of writing the compiler in the target language, then compiling the compiler with itself.
Of course, that definition comes from Stack Exchange, which is often thought of as less credible a source than Wikipedia, except by those in software development.
4) The fourth use is really great, the use here is as a paradox! This can have many applications in the real world, creative arts, writing, etc. I am going to use an example from "electronic gaming":
Do you remember how in the Zelda series, you would interact with the Phonogram Man? In the Ocarina of Time, this would have been in the Kakariko Windmill.
When the Phonogram Man teaches adult Link (the main character, you) the "Song of Storms" he does so because of his anger at the damage young Link (also you) brought by playing it; this in turn creates a paradox called the "Bootstrap Paradox".
After traveling back in time like many of us routinely do, Link (then young) uses that knowledge to cause the damage that led to the Phonogram Man's anger. Essentially, if the "Song of Storms" is played inside the Kakariko Windmill when Link is a child, it will speed up the windmill causing the well to drain and open access to the Bottom of the Well. This upsets the Phonogram Man, leading to his anger, which then leads to him teaching Link the "Song of Storms" as an adult.
In summary, I have explored the term "Bootstrapping" in this article, providing four example uses. I hope this article is/was helpful to you on your upcoming adventures!