Wikipedia
Alphard (α Hya, α Hydrae, Alpha Hydrae) is the brightest star in the constellation Hydra. The name Alphard is from the Arabic الفرد (al-fard), "the solitary one", there being no other bright stars near it. It was also known as the "backbone of the Serpent" to the Arabs. In ancient China it formed part of an asterism called the "red bird". The European astronomer Tycho Brahe dubbed it Cor Hydræ, the heart of the snake.
In the catalogue of stars in the Calendarium of Al Achsasi Al Mouakket, it was designated Soheil al Fard, which was translated into Latin as Soheil Solitarius, meaning the bright solitary one.
In Chinese, , meaning Star, refers to an asterism consisting of Alphard, τ Hydrae, τ Hydrae, ι Hydrae, 26 Hydrae, 27 Hydrae, HD 82477 and HD 82428. Consequently, Alphard itself is known as , "the First Star of Star".
Alphard is a Pascal-like programming language for data abstraction and verification, proposed and designed by William A. Wulf, Ralph L. London, and Mary Shaw. The language was the subject of several research publications in the late 1970s, but was never implemented. Its main innovative feature was the introduction of the 'form' datatype, which combines a specification and a procedural (executable) implementation. It also took the generator from IPL-V, as well as the mapping functions from Lisp and made it general case.