Why are optimization problems often called programs?


linear programming
geometric programming
convex programming
Integer programming
...


It may be that this question had been answered here before, but I couldn't find the answer.

Anyway, the answer is given by the person who coined the name itself: George Dantzig wrote in "LINEAR PROGRAMMING":


  Here are some stories about how various linear programming terms arose. The military refer to their various plans or proposed schedules of training, logistical supply and deployment of combat units as a program. When I first analyzed the Air Force planning problem and saw that it could be formulated as a system of linear inequalities, I called my paper Programming in a Linear Structure. Note that the term ‘program’ was used for linear programs long before
  it was used as the set of instructions used by a computer.
  In the early days, these instructions were called codes.
  In the summer of 1948, Koopmans and I visited the
  Rand Corporation. One day we took a stroll along the
  Santa Monica beach. Koopmans said: “Why not shorten
  ‘Programming in a Linear Structure’ to ‘Linear Programming’?” I replied: “That’s it! From now on that will be its
  name.” Later that day I gave a talk at Rand, entitled “Linear
  Programming”; years later Tucker shortened it to Linear
  Program.

