It's true that you don't see the spring-loaded tray or plate stacks as much, but it's an analogy that has stuck with us. We have a similar situation with "radio buttons" in graphical interfaces. The name is losing its meaning relative to actual radios over time, but the name is still here in a particular input type.

As far as the contents of the stack: all analogies break down sooner or later. The stack of plates is just a starting point. This is Perl, so that stack could contain plates, trays, scalars, turkeys, or small cars.

In reply to Re^3: Why are "push", "pop", "shift" and "unshift" so named? by webfiend
in thread Why are "push", "pop", "shift" and "unshift" so named? by Cody Pendant

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