Talk:Magic cookie

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[edit] Origin of name

why is it called a cookie?

damn, you're right. if you try and find out why a cookie is called a cookie they tell you it's from magic cookies, but where did they get the name from?

Hmm, Can we merge this with "Http Magic Cookies" There virtually the same article.

Pages like this refer to an Adventure game.. Colossal Cave? But a grep of the original source (the top link) shows no mention of cookies. I had heard that it had something to do with some fairy story. 「ѕʀʟ·✎」 02:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I have found these two pages [1] [2], which offer a possible explanation of the name "cookie". Some more verification is needed. - Liberatore(T) 13:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I have always figured that the term derives from its use in the Portable C Compiler source code, written in the 1970's. see http://wolfram.schneider.org/bsd/7thEdManVol2/porttour/porttour.html. Anyone who has spent enough hours studying that code would find it quite natural to use the term "cookie" as a (goal) token. As for the "socio-historical" reasons for its use there, you'd need to track down the author of said portable C compiler. —rmd

Or it could be from Alice in Wonderland (like README), or maybe it's an allusion to an Alice B. Toklas brownie... Ideally the person or persons who coined the term would step forward, but these things are notoriously hard to track down. 82.92.119.11 19:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not a native English speaker: Is "magic cookie" perhaps just another name for a fortune cookie?

Not in general, no. It's also notable that fortune has a distinct meaning in hacker jargon which definitely does derive from fortune cookies, and there's nothing particularly magical about fortune cookies. That said, anything is possible, since we don't know. 82.92.119.11 17:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

For the records: hackers relate the term to the cookie monster - it's a vivid description of a token exchange mechanism. The cookie monster can and will eat everything that you offer to it and if the thing is called a "cookie" it would not even look for long - take it and swallow it. Any further historic anecdote is probably made up - the roots of the term are in the mere language expression of "want a cookie? have a cookie!" which is even older than the cookie monster - just imagine a child begging for sweets... it's not quite but entirely unlike. 82.100.247.156 03:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

http://www.multicians.org/cookie.html says that that "cookie" predates Sesame Street. 82.42.250.222 23:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HTTP cookie

I have submitted the article HTTP cookie for peer review (I am posting this notice here as this article is related). Comments are welcome here: Wikipedia:Peer review/HTTP cookie/archive1. Thanks. - Liberatore(T) 16:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)