In Heroku, is slug an acronym?

Question

The Heroku documentation just says:

A slug is a bundle of your source, fetched dependencies, the language runtime, and compiled/generated output of the build system - ready for execution.

Where does the term slug come from? Does it have some origin within the company? Does its use come from the same place as wordpress slugs - ie from the newspaper industry?

Possible duplicate of [What is the etymology of 'slug'?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4230846/what-is-the-etymology-of-slug) — Obsidian Age, Feb 19 '18 at 00:49
That question is referring to the url slugs in wordpress. This is a different question. I've add some clarification. — nevster, Feb 19 '18 at 02:29

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 17 '18 at 14:20

I think the name "Slug" derives from Quake computer game terminology. The (non-public) software that Heroku uses to execute user code in dynos is named Railgun (I don't know why). The ammo-type for the railgun in Quake is a "Slug". Thus, the object that the Railgun software deploys ("fires") is a slug.

When we made this part of the Heroku API public we tried briefly to come up with a more self-explanatory name. This was before Docker and containers were really popularized, and I guess we decided that Slug was not too bad a name, and that it was ok for public use.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 19 '18 at 08:54

No, slug is not an acronym.
I believe the name comes from the mollusc:

a tough-skinned terrestrial mollusc which typically lacks a shell and secretes a film of mucus for protection. It can be a serious plant pest.

A slug being the container layer which contains your app's code can be seen as a small thing which lacks a shell (can't be executed without something on top of it, the stack image).
Obviously, slugs don't secrete a film of mucus.

In Heroku, is slug an acronym?

2 Answers2