Astro Hacker News - RFC 3092 – Etymology of "Foo" (2001)

tpetricek |next [-]

There is an entire paper looking at the history, meaning and cultural significance of the foo, bar, baz words: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-019-00387-2

ahazred8ta |root |parent [-]

Smokey Stover, the 1935 "Where there's foo, there's fire" guy, was a TV cartoon in the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Stover#Animation Influenced by german furchtbar/foobar/fubar, MIT used fu() and bar() in the late '30s.

ksec |next |previous [-]

A lot of programming languages uses "Foo bar" during introduction without actually explaining why "Foo" and why "bar". Before the age of Google and Internet it was perhaps one of the most common question from speakers of non-English language.

mvkel |root |parent [-]

This was one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome when I was a wee lad combing through "Professional PHP Programming." All of the examples it gave were foo/bar, and I couldn't make the intellectual leap to understand what the real world use cases would be.

It wasn't until I tried building something (mad libs) that things "clicked"

tombert |next |previous [-]

Being largely self taught, I ended reinventing a lot of lingo myself. My placeholder words are generally “blah”, “yo”, and “fart” unless other people are reading the code.

I never claimed I was terribly mature.

thenoblesunfish |next |previous [-]

This location in Switzerland reminded me of some placeholder Python code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_Pass

junon |root |parent [-]

If you opened a bar there, it'd be the Foo Bar. Full circle.

greatquux |next |previous [-]

I stole this handle from GLS many many years ago and I use it pretty much everywhere. I guess I just love the idea of metasyntactic variables, and using that phrase whenever anyone asks me about my handle!

_ZeD_ |next |previous [-]

funny how in italian the "Metasyntactic variable"[1] are "pippo", "pluto" and "paperino"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasyntactic_variable#Italian

zahlman |next |previous [-]

> First on the standard list of metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples (bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud)

I've seen foo, bar, baz, qu+x, plugh and xyxxy actually in use, not the others.

I've not used "qux" or followed the convention of adding more u's. From me it's been just foo, bar, baz, quux and then some Monty Python inspired ones: spam, ni, ecky, ptong.

Although eventually I learned enough about how to name things that I don't feel the temptation any more. I'll gladly pay that bit of joylessness to understand myself months later.

orsorna |root |parent [-]

I've never seen qu+x, except in the title of that Gundam installment released last year, Gundam gquuuuuux. I found this speculation on myanimelist sufficient, but there's no real confirmation afaik. https://myanimelist.net/forum/?goto=post&topicid=2209708&id=...

jibal |next |previous [-]

April 1, 2001

IFC_LLC |next |previous [-]

I don’t understand how this article is not at the top of all times

zabzonk |next |previous [-]

naming is hard.

my advice to junior programmers after i see them agonising over a name - "just call it x or foo for now, you are going to change it later anyway"

paulddraper |root |parent [-]

“It might be hard, but don’t let that stop you from making it worse” :)

johnthescott |next |previous [-]

f*kt up beyond all recognition. semper fidelis

i first heard "foo bar" from eric allman at berkeley office of britton-lee, mid 1980s. i vaguely recall eric wrote a column about history of "foo bar".

alhazrod |next |previous [-]

Echoes of ARPANET.

mac3n |next |previous [-]

Now, tell us about "ZQX3".

taybin |previous [-]

No mention of “baz”

hk__2 |root |parent |next [-]

It’s literally in the first sentence of the first definition:

> bar /bar/ n. [JARGON] The second metasyntactic variable, after foo and before baz.

stephenlf |root |parent |previous [-]

Part 2, 3rd definition of “foo”mentions baz