Bootstrapping or booting refers to a group of metaphors that share a common meaning, a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help. The term is often attributed to Rudolf Erich Raspe's story The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, where the main character pulls himself out of a swamp, though it's disputed whether it was done by his hair or by his bootstraps.

Straps on leather boots

Tall boots may have a tab, loop or handle at the top known as a bootstrap, allowing one to use fingers or a tool to provide better leverage in pulling the boots on. The saying "to pull yourself up by your bootstraps" was already in use during the 1800s as an example of an impossible task. Bootstrap as a metaphor, meaning to better oneself by one's own unaided efforts, was in use in 1922. This metaphor spawned additional metaphors for a series of self-sustaining processes that proceed without external help.

Computing

The computer term bootstrap began as a metaphor in the 1950s. In computers, pressing a bootstrap button caused a hardwired program to read a bootstrap program from an input unit and then execute the bootstrap program which read more program instructions and became a self-sustaining process that proceeded without external help from manually entered instructions. As a computing term, bootstrap has been used since at least 1958.

The bootstrap concept was used in the IBM 701 computer (1952-1956) which had a "load button" which initiated reading of the first 36-bit word from a punched card in a card reader, or from a magnetic tape unit, or drum unit (predecessor of the hard disk drive). The left 18-bit half-word was then executed as an instruction which read additional words into memory.

• See Bootstrapping (compilers), writing a compiler for a computer language using the computer language itself to code the compiler.
• See Bootstrapping (computing), a summary of the process of a simple computer system activating a more complicated computer system.
• See Installation (computer programs), for the bootstrapping process as part of the software installation process
• See Bootstrapping node, a network node that helps newly joining nodes successfully join a P2P network.

Business and finance

Bootstrapping in business is to start a business without external help/capital. Startups that bootstrap their business fund development of their company through internal cash flow and are cautious with their expenses.

• See Startup company, a startup company can grow by reinvesting profits in its own growth, if its bootstrapping costs are low and return on investment is high.
• See Bootstrapping (finance), the method to create the spot rate curve.
• See Operation Bootstrap ("Operación Manos a la Obra"), ambitious projects which industrialized Puerto Rico in the mid-20th century.