Thunk

In computer programming, a thunk is a subroutine used to inject a calculation into another subroutine. Thunks are primarily used to delay a calculation until its result is needed, or to insert operations at the beginning or end of the other subroutine. They have many other applications in compiler code generation and modular programming.

The term originated as a whimsical irregular form of the verb think. It refers to the original use of thunks in ALGOL 60 compilers, which required special analysis (thought) to determine what type of routine to generate.^[1]^[2]

^ Eric Raymond rejects "a couple of onomatopoeic myths circulating about the origin of this term" and cites the inventors of the thunk recalling that the term "was coined after they realized (in the wee hours after hours of discussion) that the type of an argument in Algol-60 could be figured out in advance with a little compile-time thought [...] In other words, it had 'already been thought of'; thus it was christened a thunk, which is 'the past tense of "think" at two in the morning'. See: Raymond, Eric S. (1996). Raymond, Eric S. (ed.). The New Hacker's Dictionary. MIT Press. p. 445. ISBN 9780262680929. Retrieved 2015-05-25.
^ See Ingerman (1961): "The translator knows what kind of thunk to create by considering the formation of the actual parameter and the previously scanned declarations.… [W]hen a procedure declaration is being compiled, the translator, again by observing syntax, knows what kind of address to expect from a thunk."

[1] Eric Raymond rejects "a couple of onomatopoeic myths circulating about the origin of this term" and cites the inventors of the thunk recalling that the term "was coined after they realized (in the wee hours after hours of discussion) that the type of an argument in Algol-60 could be figured out in advance with a little compile-time thought [...] In other words, it had 'already been thought of'; thus it was christened a thunk, which is 'the past tense of "think" at two in the morning'. See: Raymond, Eric S. (1996). Raymond, Eric S. (ed.). The New Hacker's Dictionary. MIT Press. p. 445. ISBN 9780262680929. Retrieved 2015-05-25.

[2] See Ingerman (1961): "The translator knows what kind of thunk to create by considering the formation of the actual parameter and the previously scanned declarations.… [W]hen a procedure declaration is being compiled, the translator, again by observing syntax, knows what kind of address to expect from a thunk."

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