bootstrap

One of my contributions to the Drupal project is the bootstrap. This is the part of the code which executes at the very beginning of each request. Since this code executes even for cached pages, we optimize it as much as possible.

Anyway, I just learned that this term derives from

a German legend about Baron Münchhausen, who was able to lift himself out of a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair. In later versions he was using his own boot straps to pull himself out of the sea which gave rise to the term bootstrapping.

Details on this Wikipedia page.